The goalkeeper from La Verneda who kicked free kicks and penalties

BarcelonaThere are opportunities that you wait a lifetime for. Àngel Fortuño (Barcelona, 2001) knows this well, having defended the Espanyol goal for seventeen years. As a child, he was a ball boy at Cornellà-El Prat, from where he watched up close the players he aspired to emulate one day. Last Friday, at the Malaga stadium, Marko Dmitrovic's injury opened the doors to a starting position he had been chasing for months. And he did not waste the opportunity. “Àngel's match was perfect,” said Manolo González, who was not surprised by the level of the goalkeeper, usually a substitute. Neither he nor anyone at the Sant Adrià sports city, which has been his home since he was 7 years old. “I have known him for a long time and I know he is a great goalkeeper. I wanted him to be able to prove it,” added Pol Lozano, one of the first team captains.

A neighborhood goalkeeper

The love story between Espanyol and Fortuño began with a rejection, the one the goalkeeper gave to the blue-and-white club when they first showed interest in him. Back then he was playing for CE Júpiter, his neighborhood team, and he did not want to separate from his friends. “In fact, many of those teammates are still close friends of Àngel,” says Fèlix Mayor, director, delegate, and assistant coach of the pre-benjamín grana team when Fortuño played there. His son, David, shared a locker room with the current Espanyol goalkeeper, who grew up in Sant Martí, straddling the Gran Via and Carrer Agricultura, where the Jupi field is located. Years earlier, on that same pitch, when it was made of sand, Alan Pace played American football with the Búfals del Poblenou.

“He is very much from the neighborhood, very much from La Verneda. His father was a goalkeeper for the Júpiter first team,” reveals Fèlix Mayor, who already saw special qualities in him when he coached him: “Since he was very little, he stood between the posts and he was just like he is now, he was a mini-Àngel. Personally, he was already a good kid, very responsible. And technically, he already stood like Iribar, with his arms akimbo. He was very good in one-on-ones, quick with his reflexes, and had a great strike on the ball. Imagine how good his foot was that he took the free kicks and penalties. Between him and Marc Carbonell, who is now at Santfeliuenc, they shared them.” Finally, in the summer of 2009, after winning a tournament in Santa Susanna, Fortuño signed for Espanyol's Benjamin B team. Since he still keeps many friendships at the club today, it is common to see him at the Júpiter field. On the day of the promotion against Pirinaica, already established in the first team of the blue and whites, he took plenty of photos with fans who asked him for them.

A matter of centimeters

Fortuño didn't even have to change schools when he signed for Espanyol. His parents' house is just a twenty-minute walk from the Sant Adrià sports city, where he has been going almost every day for nearly two decades. From the youth ranks to the first team, he has passed through all the categories of the blue-and-white academy, although the path to the elite has not exactly been a straight line. For years, he even thought he wouldn't continue at the club because of a “height issue”: he is 1.83 meters tall.

When Iñigo Arteaga took over as the first team's goalkeeping coach, he asked Adrià Caballero, then coordinator of the La21 goalkeepers, about Fortuño because he wasn't sure about the height issue. “I told him, 'Watch him and then we'll talk.' At the end of the training session, he told me, 'You were right, this kid has a lot of quality,'” explains Caballero, who year after year asked himself the same thing: “You saw that Joan Garcia, who is from his generation, was over 1.90 and that he wasn't growing, but the thing is that Àngel compensated for the lack of centimeters with the jumping power he has. He is a physical prodigy.” This is confirmed by Luis Blanco, who coached him in the youth and reserve teams: “It seems hard to believe, but one of his main virtues is his aerial game. He is very brave and handles situations well when he comes out. Under the posts, he is agile, fast, and strong. And personally, he has always kept his feet on the ground; he is a very normal guy.”

The competition with Joan Garcia

“In the youth academy, Àngel had always stood out, and he had a healthy rivalry with Joan Garcia. I believe that has been good for them,” says Blanco regarding the competition between the two Espanyol goalkeepers, marked in red in the parakeet youth football system. In their youth years, both were called up to the national team. “Imagine, two Espanyol goalkeepers with Spain. That shows you how well things are done at the club,” comments Caballero, who was crucial for the penultimate renewal of Fortuño, who now has a contract until 2030.

“When he wasn't playing for the reserve team, he considered leaving. I remember a conversation with him on the bench of pitch number 1 in Sant Adrià: 'Where will you go? Nowhere will be like home. You were raised in Sant Martí, right next door, and this is the club of your life. You have had to compete with another great goalkeeper, but you will end up playing for Espanyol's first team.' Maybe I was a bit harsh, but he is a very emotional boy who loves a challenge. And look at him now,” recounts Caballero, who often showed him videos of Ederson, one of the goalkeepers with the most powerful shot in the world: "'You can do the same,' I would tell him." No wonder he took free kicks and penalties at Júpiter.

His story has many parallels with that of Joan Garcia, who, like him, debuted very young and, some time later, broke into the first team eleven after a teammate's injury. One came in for Pacheco and the other for Dmitrovic. With the Serbian recovered, we will see if on Saturday against Atlético de Madrid (2:00 PM, DAZN) Manolo keeps his bet on Àngel Fortuño, the goalkeeper from La Verneda who wants to succeed close to home.