David Raya: ‘When you lose a Champions League final it destroys you inside’

The goalkeeper discusses being bullied by 35-year-olds in the English fifth tier, winning the Premier League and competition in the Spain squad

“No, no, there’s someone else,” David Raya says, leaping out of his chair at Spain’s training camp in Chattanooga, Tennessee, pulling his phone from the wash bag sitting on the floor and starting to scroll. Ah, look, here it is,” he says eventually, reading from the screen: “‘… the goalkeeper, who played in yesterday’s match, was at Southport on loan from Oxford United…’ Yeah, Max Crocombe. I think that is right”

And so then there were four, another name to add to the list. Peter Withe, Stan Mortensen, him, and now New Zealand’s No 1: the men who played for Southport and went to a World Cup.

The first senior competitive game Raya played was in front of 1,405 people away at Macclesfield in the Conference; the last was in front of 61,035 at the Champions League final in Budapest, making him only the third footballer to play non-league football and the biggest club game of all. The other two, in case you’re interested – and Raya is – were Steve Finnan and Chris Smalling. Four days later, via an open-topped bus parade with the Premier League trophy, he joined the favourites to win the World Cup. The best days of his career, he calls them.

Those ones, not these ones. “That time took me where I am now,” Raya says. He was 18 when he joined Southport. “I was with the Under-21s [at Blackburn] and there were no demands, no pressure, no sense that the three points really mattered,” he says. “I told the club I needed minutes in professional football to experience what it means to have to win. I couldn’t go to League One obviously – I didn’t have the level – but going to the fifth tier shaped me.”

The opportunity to play came when Liam Roberts, who a decade on is at Mansfield, got injured. It didn’t go well, not then. “If you talk to the chairman or anyone else on the board at Southport they would tell you they were thinking: ‘who have we signed here?!’” Raya recalls. “I was 18, 19 years old, playing in a league that was so, so physical. I had been used to playing in the Under-21s where it was all on the floor, playing nicely, and suddenly you’re being crashed into by 30, 35-year-old men who instead of going for the ball are going for the goalkeeper.

“But once I got used to the league, earned my teammates’ trust, those were the three or four best months of my career in terms of learning.” At the end of the season he headed back to Blackburn; arriving at Southport that summer was Crocombe. Playing at Ewood Park was still not certain – behind Jason Steele, Raya played only five games the following season – but he had changed and he was ready, mentally and physically.

“You learn that it’s not as easy as when you are used to things being done for you. It’s people trying to make it to the end of the month. You have teammates who need the win bonus to pay the mortgage. You play midweek, five or six hours away, and they’re up at 6am to go to work. You see the reality, what football is, and it shapes you; you take nothing for granted. And I enjoyed it a lot, a lot – even if they did smack me all over the place. I had black eyes, pain everywhere, but I liked it and I’m so grateful. And here I am.”

Just across the level crossing where the Chattanooga train passes, through the trees, is the World Cup base that Spain have set up at the Baylor prep school, three miles outside the city. Training has finished for the day and teammates are waiting for the goalkeeper to join them on the golf course before returning to the hotel opposite the aquarium downtown. They have been together for two weeks already, starting in Las Rozas, 25km northwest of Madrid; if all goes well they will have another five together ending in New Jersey, rivals before, all on the same team now.

“Those at the Champions League final had a few more days, so I got there on the Wednesday night,” Raya says. “I arrived a bit before Fabián [Ruiz]. I was saying hello to some of the others in reception when he arrived. I went to say congratulations; that was almost the first thing I did. I couldn’t really talk [to him] after the final; I just didn’t have it in me. The next day we talked about the game properly. Just two mates chatting … I was happy for him that he could lift the trophy for a second time.”

Happy might not be the word, exactly. “The thing is that when you lose a Champions League final, when you get there for the first time in 20 years and then you lose on penalties, it destroys you inside,” the goalkeeper admits. “I left there with my head held high because of the work we had done all year but I was broken inside because we were so, so, so, so close … “

There’s a pause. “You don’t know when you’ll play another one or even if you will play another one,” Raya says. “When I went home, I was broken. We stayed [in Budapest] over night and travelled the next morning. That night is very, very hard. The following morning too. [But] then you reach the Emirates stadium, you see the fans and that lifts you. When you come out on the bus with the Premier League trophy and see all the people, what it means to them, you realise what you’ve done.

“Personally, those were very, very hard moments but you take a step back and look at it with perspective. You think about the way the club was a few years ago and the way it is now, how each year we got better in the Champions League, how we won the league for the first time in over 20 years … and that gets a smile out of you. That’s when you think next year we can do better, and win the Champions League.” Now to try to win the World Cup like his idol, Iker Casillas.

Despite being the best goalkeeper in the Premier League and arguably Europe last season, a Golden Glove winner for a third year running, Raya did not start Spain’s first game against Cape Verde. Nor did Joan Garcia, La Liga’s best. Instead, it was Athletic Club’s Unai Simón who did. That Simon has been No 1 for six years now did not prevent that from becoming the one debate that surrounds a stable, successful selección.

It is also a debate that, in truth, has tended to be turned more towards Garcia than Raya, certainly until reaching this year’s Champions League put Raya front and centre: not being at Madrid or Barcelona means not having a lobby. The day he named his squad, tired of all the Simón/García talk, Luis de la Fuente asked: “Why aren’t we talking about David Raya? It’s unbelievable. It’s terrifying.” Raya appreciated the support, he says. Being in England, perhaps he had been forgotten? “Maybe so, maybe not,” he replies. “It’s natural with Joan and Unai being in Spain. I’ve been away a very long time. I remember the first time I came to selección, people asked who I was.”

It is no exaggeration. Back then, in March 2022, “who is David Raya?” really was the headline in AS, ABC, Cadena Ser, El Periodico, Sport, La Razon and the rest. Well, he had spent his whole professional career in England since leaving Cornella at 16 and was called up having played just 15 top-flight games. He could even have played for England. “The idea never crossed my mind,” he says. “I always wanted to play for Spain and never thought about [England]: I wouldn’t have felt it, I would have felt an outsider. However long I was in England, I feel Spanish.”

“Some look for a debate or a headline, but competition is good,” he continues. If there is a word he keeps coming back to it’s naturally. How do you deal with the debate? Naturally. How do you deal with not being first choice for your country, forced to play a different role, knowing you’ll probably be away for six weeks without playing a single minute? Naturally. How do you and your teammates relate to each other knowing you’re competitors? Naturally. He’s seen it before. Remember the debate when he signed for an Arsenal side who already had Aaron Ramsdale? Even when Raya arrived at Southport he was one of eight goalkeepers.

He’s laughing now. “I don’t think there was a debate then,” he says. The scrutiny is different now, another kind of pressure. “That one is harder, quite honestly,” Raya replies. “Here, you’re exposed to the world, but you don’t have the pressure of wondering if you’ll make it to the end of the month. Media and public exposure comes with being a footballer and if you’re going to play at this level you have to be ready. I don’t find it difficult. I know I’ll make mistakes. Not everyone is going to like you. I’ll leave the debate for others.”

“Sure, it’s different with goalkeepers: only one can play. But we work together every day and we’re close. We help each other. The position is in very good hands, whoever plays. You come with an open mind, try to help – whatever your role. I’m very competitive but I always respect what the manager asks.”

“You treat everyone the same way,” Raya adds. “When you’re first choice you can’t treat anyone badly; when you are second or third choice you can’t treat anyone badly either. I have a good relationship with Kepa [Arrizabalaga], with Unai, with Tommy Setford, and with Joan, just as I had with [Álex] Remi[ro]. If a teammate’s down, it’s up to you to pick him up. They do the same for you. People say [competing] goalkeepers don’t get on well: I have always got on well with my teammates and I hope I always will. If the atmosphere wasn’t good, it would be very hard to work.

“It’s joy to be here. It’s my second World Cup and it’s a dream. I’ve had a successful year at Arsenal: I won my third Golden Glove and the Premier League. When you’re little you think about the World Cup. I was 15 when Spain won it in 2010 and I live this with total happiness and enthusiasm. It’s not every day you can be at a World Cup.”

It’s not everyone who can be, either. Still less starting out at Southport. But here’s David Raya. “And Max Crocombe,” he says.