Five things we learned from Mata’s UTD Podcast
LIFE UNDER JOSE
So how did Juan feel when Jose Mourinho took charge, the man who had sold him to United from Chelsea? Did they talk about it at the start? “
No, nothing,” he replied. “So many people were asking me, ‘What did you say in the beginning?’ I was like: ‘I’ll tell you – we spoke about Manchester, and a game that Barcelona had played a few days ago, and football’. From now on, it was completely normal and good relationship between us. The respect is mutual, and we never had any personal problem.
”The situation was a football situation. He played in a certain way that maybe didn’t suit perfectly my qualities as a player, and that’s it. Sometimes it happens in football. But my mentality was: okay, I’m going to try. My family was a bit scared. The fans were telling me: ‘What are you going to do?’ But I had it clear in my mind that I’m going to stay and prove that I can play much more than people think, and I did. And it’s one of the things that I feel very proud [of] in my career: having made that decision, testing myself and keeping going and playing, at the end, the Carabao Cup final, the Europa League final, and feeling an important player in the squad. That’s how I felt before, and how I felt with him.
“Probably the easiest decision would have been leaving. I’m not like that at all. I believed in myself and probably that’s being strong, I don’t know. But that’s the way I am and I wanted to be at the time. After many months and being second in the league, and winning some trophies also, with the Community Shield also.
“It’s frustrating when you read [something], or when my grandad calls me. ‘I’ve heard this, I’ve heard that you’re going to give your no.8 to someone else and you have agreed with the manager that you will play less.’ I said, ‘How could I have agreed that? Don’t believe that!’ But he calls me, and that’s the difficult thing: to keep your family and your friends calm! ‘If something is going to happen, I will call you first, don’t worry!’ But it’s very difficult when he lives in Spain and watches TV. But it’s frustrating because you cannot stop everything that is being written. You can’t every single day put a tweet [out] saying: ‘This is fake, this is not true.’ I prefer to stay away and when it’s needed – because it’s something really serious – then you really say it.
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