Juan Manuel Mata, “creative spark” of Chelsea started his career at Real Oviedo and stayed there for 3 years before joining Real Madrid at age 15. He switched to Castilla in 2006-07 and was given the number 34 shirt in the first team. He signed for Valencia CF after failing to break into Madrid’s main squad. In 2008, he scored twice in the Copa del Rey semi-final match against FC Barcelona to help Valencia reach the final against Getafe CF and won the trophy. In 2011, Mata signed a 5-year deal with Chelsea and revealed that Fernando Torres helped persuade him to move to Stamford Bridge. In 2012, Mata won the Premier League Player of the month award.
Quotes:
1) No matter what you achieve, always seek to improve on your best performance.
2) Enjoying what you do is essential to success.
3) In every field of life, there’s a universal language that everyone understands. In football, there’s no language more than the ball.
4) To succeed you have to understand a new environment and learn to adapt to it.
5) Stay hungry and it’ll help you to keep on improving.
6) When faced with a stronger and bigger opponent, look for the gaps in his play and capitalise on them.
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