From when I was six football became really important- thanks to Oliver and Benji on TV! It was a cartoon series, really good. The story was about a group of lads who start by playing football for fun, and end up as professionals. After the show me and my brother would go out and play football. I liked to imagine I was a professional footballer like the kids in the series. I played in goal until one day I got a couple of teeth knocked out by the ball and decided that my career between the sticks was finished. Great save, though.

I’ve got great memories of my childhood, but one in particular is really important: chatting with my Grandad about Atleti. My Grandad was a strange case in terms of football, the truth is football hardly interested him, but nonetheless he was passionate when it came to Atleti. The image is still fresh in my mind of my Grandad in front of me, talking without stopping, trying to get across to me the importance of being an Atletico de Madrid fan, and as witness to those wonderful talks have a plate, with his name and the Atletico badge. That plate is the best trophy I’ve got.

My dad had to leave work in the afternoons to take me to training in Orcasitas, and then go back to work in Fuenlabrada by train, other times my mother took me to the training ground on the bus and on the train, whether it was raining or if it was baking hot she’d always take me. She used to say ‘if you ever get tired you don’t have to go anymore, don’t feel obliged to keep on with the football.’ But I never got tired of it. My brother and sister had to take me to training sometimes, too. While I was playing, they’d be in the stands studying, in the different grounds they had to take me to.

Without my family I never would have got into the first team, I never would have even been a footballer.

At fifteen I signed my first contract with Atletico de Madrid. I would have signed for life. When I was a kid and we played bottletops I was always Atleti, playing football with my mates I always imagined I was an Atleti player, and now I really was one, I was part of the club, I was an Atletico de Madrid player.

At cadet age I played my first season with the youth team and took part in the National League. The group I was in was made up of cadet level players who had stood out the year before and first year youth team players, with the aim of putting together a strong side for the Honour Division. It was then I met the coach who has been most important for my career, Abraham Garcia, who I really hope and believe will go far.

At sixteen I began the season playing in the Honour Division and I finished it in the first team. That season was amazing, but from the way it started nobody would have guessed how well it would end. Thanks to a cracked shinbone, and after an operation to put it right, I didn’t start playing until December.

Things started to pick up in February when I won the Algarve Tournament with the National under-16s, in the Algarve. I really wanted to play in the under-16s European Championship which was to be held in England the following May, but it wasn’t going to be easy, me having been injured and not having taken part in the qualifiers. In the end Juan Santiesteban and Armando Ufarte gave me the chance to play.

ß Right after turning sixteen I played in and won the European under-16 championship. I was top scorer and chosen as Player of the Tournament, the same as had happened at cadet level. One of the most noticeable effects of that tournament was that when I got back to Madrid people would stop me in the street. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before.

ß After the under-16s championship I played a match with the under-18s, and I also played in the final of the Youth Champions Cup. A few days later Futre called me to tell me I was going to train with the first team, as I was going to be involved in the pre-season preparation and I might as well get integrated into the set-up. That was a Tuesday; the Wednesday I went to training, the Saturday I was in the squad and on Sunday I made my debut in El Calderon against Leganes- the 27th of May 2001.

The following week I scored my first goal, against Albacete, and a few weeks later I suffered my first great professional disappointment when we missed out on promotion to the First Division, on goal difference, after the game against Getafe.

That year I got to know all about success and failure. For me personally it had been a great season, but as a team we had not accomplished our objective, and the disappointment was intense. I’d been in the first team for a month and I’d already been through things which some footballers might not experience in their whole career. And my career had only just begun.

In November I played in the under-17 World Cup, in Trinidad and Tobago. It wasn’t a good experience as far as results on the pitch are concerned, but nonetheless it helped me grow professionally. I began the new season with the first team.

That year we achieved promotion a few weeks before the end of the season, and despite not having had a great year personally, I was very happy that we had reached our goal. Two years previous the club had incurred a great debt to the fans, and we’d paid it back by getting back to the place we never should have left in the first place, the First Division.

In July, 18 by now, I played in the under-19s European Championship in Norway. We arrived with great expectations, we had a good team, even though we did make thing a bit complicated for ourselves by drawing with the Czech Republic. We made up for it with victories over the hosts, Norway, and Slovakia, playing excellent football. We beat the Germans in the final, I was sharp enough and lucky enough to score the winning goal in a game in which both teams played exceptionally. We were champions again, and once again I was both top scorer and Player of the Tournament.

After a year in the Second Division which hadn’t gone too well for me the fans were waiting to see what I’d be capable of in the First Division. It was a good season, I scored thirteen goals and played well all year- especially in the home games against Barcelona and against Deportivo La Coruña. Those two games marked my footballing career, in a way, because after those games the fans really started to believe in me, in my ability.

Things did not go as well as we had hoped for Atletico in the 2004-05 season. Although I played in all the League games, scoring 16 goals, it wasn’t enough to get us into Europe. We even lost in the Cup semi-finals against Osasuna. All our hopes of getting a title for Atletico faded away and we were all dreadfully disappointed.

The season’s positive note was the National Team’s classification for the World Cup in Germany. Although we had some difficulties, we had to play the playoffs against Slovakia and we fulfilled our aim of getting classified.

Atleti made a secure bet to the season 05/06. The club signed a very good coach. Carlos Bianchi won everything with Vélez and Boca, but with us he wasn’t very lucky. The truth is, he didn’t adapt himself to the squad neither the squad adapted to him. That’s why; the first months of the season weren’t good enough. The League was getting very hard. The arrival of Pepe Murcia was like a balm and we overcame winning six consecutives matches. The previous dynamic was dangerous and the new coach gave us enough moral to straighten the way. Pitifully, we didn’t keep that regularity acquired before and we couldn’t achieve the European place.

The nicest face of the season I lived it with the National Team at Germany’s World Cup. Representing my country in the greatest championship of the World and playing against the best players of the world has been for me a dream come true. I suffered the elimination in France’98 and Korea on television, but by the first time I was able to try helping to change history. The motivation of the group was extraordinary and all of us were prepared because we knew it could have been the Spain World Cup.

We overcame the first phase very good. At collective level, the team stood out with good play and goals, while the coach gave me his confidence and I scored three goals. I even leaded the classification of goal scorers after the second round of the championship. At eights to final, we had to compete against one of the strongest teams, France. We did the worst match of the tournament and we had to make the luggage. The experience of a veteran rival affected more than the quality and the courage of our national team. However, I understand that at Germany we built a young team and with quality that I am sure in the future will give a lot of happiness to the supporters.

The performance at the World Cup make people talk about my future. Summer, like always, was spotted of the offers I rejected. Sincerely, several teams were interested formally on me, but we said to all of them I wasn’t moving from Atleti. To demonstrate my faithfulness to my colours of all my life, I decided to accepted the proposal of the team to wide my contract for one more season, until June 2009.

In the season 06/07 we are in European places since the beginning of the League. My wish is to achieve, finally, a European place to play in Europe next campaign. Another of my dreams was gone: not to play the final of the King’s Cup.