From the people's team to the national team, the unique case of Miquel Salvó: "It's hard for Barça to say no"

• Alberto Diaz Interview

Among the many routes to the top, where so many dreams vanish due to the whims of fate, children who pointed to the sky,

faced a unique path.

There is no memory of a case like that of the power forward from Gran Canaria, already a regular in the Spanish team in these FIBA ​​Windows -this Thursday he faces Iceland (8:45 p.m.) with the ticket already sealed for the World Cup-, since he has stepped on each of the national basketball categories until reaching the ACB.

"It has been a totally different path from the rest. Others perhaps touched the elite sooner. But I would not change this for anything in the world," he confesses.

Miquel literally started from his hometown team, in Vilanova i la Geltrú (Barcelona) -he returns there every summer, where he works on his evolution in the pavilion where he was 'born'-, step by step, EBA (Cornellá), LEB Silver (Tarragona), LEB Oro (Oviedo) and... "When my agent tells me that I have an ACB contract... I remember that I was with my friends on a terrace, having a drink in my city. And it was incredible, I got nervous , they asked me what was wrong with me", now admits a guy who has already won European titles with Burgos and who is playing the Eurocup with

.

Although there were also episodes of "frustration" during the promotion, of those that mark, because not all were smiles for a boy who was recruited by Barça in childhood - there he became inseparable from Oriol Paulí - and who, a few years later,

to return to CB Samà.

He considered leaving everything.

"It's hard to be told no, that they don't count on you at Barça, when you're a child. Everything comes down on you," he recalls.

"But I took it normally. I wanted to enjoy myself again as I didn't in that last year at Barça, which was making everything uphill for me. Take that step back, play again with my friends, in my city ", says who, in another twist of the script, soon headed for Belgium, to the Spirou Charleroi subsidiary, where he gained momentum for what was to come.

Saved, with Gran Canaria.ACB PHOTO

And Gipuzkoa arrived and then Burgos and now Gran Canaria.

And stay one step away from the Eurobasket and, why not, a World Cup this summer.

"You know that it is there, that if one day someone fails or there is no more, then you are the next. There is great hope that that call will arrive and, in my case, take one more step and participate in a great tournament. But I'm not here either. obsessed. I am satisfied with what I am living, which is incredible", proclaims the one who claims, because he is part of it, that middle class that sustains the legacy of the Gasols

company.

And who, because of the journey, never left his studies, the other vocation: "If everything goes well in a year I'll graduate (Teaching). It's always caught my attention, when I was young I was a campus monkey...

What lesson has this path taught you? That what is important is humility and hard work.

Because I've had to work hard and surround myself with the right people.

That has made me take positive steps, always forward.

I have taken it very normally.

I look back and it's very nice. What would I say to a player who might be in a similar situation? That he shouldn't be in a hurry and that he enjoys the journey.

Don't be obsessed.

Work, be humble, not look down on anyone and always know where you are, who you are, with your feet on the ground.

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