Cristian Joel Sánchez: "debuting is the dream of any academy player"

June 7, 2019

The young Cuban goalkeeper who plays for Sporting de Gijón will make his debut with the first team, amid rumors indicating interest from Real Madrid and Liverpool to secure his services.

The Cuban goalkeeper from Sporting de Gijón's reserve team, Cristian Joel Sánchez, will defend the goal of the first team in the last league match against Cádiz due to the absences of Mariño and Dani Martín, and stated that his debut "is the dream of any academy player".

Cristian Joel, born in Cuba 19 years ago, moved to live in Spain with his parents and at age 12 entered Sporting's soccer school, where he has progressed through the different categories until reaching the reserve team in which he currently plays.

The young red-and-white goalkeeper stands out for his size, but also for his reflexes, and is considered one of the players to watch, since clubs like Real Madrid and Liverpool, the recent European champion, have shown interest in him.

"Playing with the first team is what I have been working for all year, to be available to the manager. If he decides that I play, I will take advantage of the opportunity," said the goalkeeper at the end of a training session held at the Mareo school.

The red-and-white player assured that this week he was working "like the rest of the season, without doing anything different," despite already knowing in advance that he would be the starter, since the two goalkeepers of the first squad cannot do so, Mariño due to injury and Dani Martín being concentrated with the under-21 national team.

"I am agile between the posts and I like aerial balls and what I want is to transmit security to the people," noted Cristian Joel, who acknowledged that his reference is the Burnley goalkeeper in the Premier League, Joe Hart.

His good season in the Second B reserve team has made his name come up for a possible call with Cuba's national team, something that Joel himself considers would be "very nice," but he assured that he knows nothing about it.

Cristian Joel's will be the seventh debut of reserve team players this season, following those of Pelayo Morilla, Isma Cerro, Álvaro Traver, Carlos Cordero, Pedro Díaz and Dani Martín, although only one of them, Traver, had regular playing time throughout the entire season.

Sporting, which is ninth in the Second Division standings, will host Cádiz under very different conditions than the Andalusian team, which on Tuesday faced Extremadura in a postponed match from the weekend due to the death of José Antonio Reyes. The Gijón side has been resting for a week, since last match day they were scheduled to face Reus, which is suspended.