Alves (1): "I'm grateful for the effort the club made"

Barcelona player Daniel Alves gave an interview to Catalan sports paper Sport.





You have to be thankful to Sevilla president José María del Nido...
Why?

Thanks to him refusing to sell you to Chelsea or Real Madrid one year ago, you're now a Barcelona player.
Well, if you look at it from that perspective, it's true.

You still feel uncomfortable about the attitude of Del Nido?
Well, it's the past but I don't like it when people don't keep their word. I keep on trusting the word of people.

If we're well informed, you gave your word to Barcelona in the month of March. You don't think that you were taking a risk there?
I don't see why...

You were closing the options to join Madrid, Chelsea, Milan...
Look, in my life I'm good to people who are good to me. Barcelona came for me, Txiki and Ingla made me an offer, they treated me with respect, they transmitted security and they showed me that they can be trusted.

And Barcelona paid an huge transfer fee to Sevilla...
The club believed in me and made a great effort. I will always be very grateful for that.

After you had a verbal agreement with Barcelona, Real Madrid contacted you twice trying to sign you...
You should ask my agent about these things, he knows more about it. But once I had given my word to Barcelona, there was no other option for me. Barcelona dealt with the issue very seriously and that was enough for me.

How did they convince you?
With a very tempting football project. Barcelona hadn't won a trophy for two years and the club wanted to put a new team together that was able to return to the top. And they counted on me. That attracted me a lot.

It wasn't all about the money?
One always try to get paid better and to feel secure about the future. Barcelona offered me what I was expecting.

But you had higher offers from Italy and England...
I wanted to live and play in Barcelona. I knew I would be very happy with my family there. That's more important than the money. Besides that, it was very important for my state of mind to leave Sevilla by the front door. I was afraid that I would leave with problems, but thanks to Sevilla and Barcelona I left like I had dreamt it.


This was the first part of this interview. Tomorrow you can read the second part with Alves talking - amongst other things - about life in Barcelona.