Manuel Almunia exclusive: I felt I could play for England but part of me was thinking, ‘What are you saying? People will want to kill you!’

The Mohammed Bin Zayed Stadium, home of Al Jazira FC, is a giant, imposing arena that holds 40,000 fans. Like many of the architectural boasts of Abu Dhabi it’s probably bigger than it needs to be. The club are owned by Manchester City’s royal backer Sheikh Mansour — financial muscle is flexed all around the United Arab Emirates’ oil-rich mix of pristine luxury and desert dust.

It is also the setting for The Athletic’s meeting with former Arsenal, West Ham United and Watford goalkeeper Manuel Almunia, who now coaches the Middle East club’s goalkeepers.

Almunia’s greeting — like the mid-afternoon 20-degree-heat — is warm and welcoming. The 42-year-old is a picture of good health in his green training top and blue shorts. His CrossFit addiction, which he tells us is good for the mind and the body, has him looking athletic, powerful and arguably even more imposing than when he was still playing five years ago.

We take a seat on a large leather sofa in the reception area of the stadium. Around us, polished marble and glass fight for attention. He’s not really one to do interviews, but via exchanges on WhatsApp, we’ve managed to set one up. The agenda hasn’t really been spoken about though, and as we begin to chat it becomes clear that nothing is off limits.

He will always be a hero to Watford fans, what with that dramatic Anthony Knockaert penalty save and match-winning performances in the Championship season of 2012-13. Arsenal fans will want to know more about his battles with Jens Lehmann and the pressures of playing for one of the Big Six. And what about that story of him wanting to play for England or the health issue that ended his career?

We go into all of that, and more, painting a portrait of a player and man who, while still involved in football, is glad to be in another part of the world and has deep reservations about the power the game has over the hearts and minds of those who play it.

“When the doctor said, ‘OK. You need to stop playing football’ I said, ‘Thank you, this is my chance to rest up,’” Manuel Almunia says bluntly.

It’s not what you expect to hear from a player describing the moment his career was brought to a close, but it gives a good insight into exactly how the Spaniard viewed the game. 

“I feel like this and many, many footballers feel like this, after many years with this pressure and this way of living,” he says. The heart condition Apical Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy had been discovered during a medical at Cagliari. Italian football regulations stipulate any player found to have the condition, which can cause sudden cardiac arrest, cannot play professional football. 

“I travelled to Milan for a second test but the doctor told me that in Italy you cannot play with any problem with your heart and recommended I stop playing football because of the risk of maybe collapsing in training or in a game. So that same day I called my wife and said, ‘I’m finished. Let’s go to Spain, go home,’” he explains, as if recounting a happy rather than troubling episode. 

Although he didn’t know, after leaving Watford in 2014, that his career would be brought to a sudden end within weeks of arriving in Italy, there was always a chance that one day this moment would come. It wasn’t the first time a heart issue had been raised.

“I remember at Watford when they did the check for my heartbeat. When the workload was high they said I had to be careful. But still, in England, I could play. So I had this [condition] a long time ago. But in Italy they don’t allow you to play. So I could have gone back to another Premier League team but I felt like this was my chance to stop.

“I just wanted to rest. I didn’t want to make that effort any more. I was going to Italy because it was an adventure and a nice place, but after that my wife asked me, ‘Do you want to find a team in the UK or in Spain?’ and I said, ‘No, forget it. I’m ready to stop.’” 

Although it appears he was more than ready to make the final call. It was perhaps a timely medical intervention.

“I knew I needed to be careful,” he says. “When I told the family, my mother was crying. My uncle died from a heart attack after watching one of my games, in 2002. It was certainly something in my family.”

So, aged 37, time was called on a career that came in three sections: Six years at six clubs developing his game in Spain. Then eight years under intense scrutiny at Arsenal. And finally, two with Watford that included one of his finest moments.

Why did it come as such a relief when he was told to stop? What had worn him down so much during his career?

“Football can kill your brain if you are a person who takes things very seriously,” he says. “It’s what’s happened with many, many players. Even here in Abu Dhabi, I notice some players feel like this, even when their football has no pressure, there’s no fans and no big media. But if there is something you’re not happy with, you take it home and you get really depressed. You accelerate it, all the feelings.

“You see things that are not real. You think that maybe someone is talking about you and it’s not true. But your mind tells you it is, maybe because you make a mistake. You think people are criticising you and, when you finish football, you realise that everything is not true. And you see how nobody cares about you, it’s something you make (up) inside of your head,” he says as he outlines the rollercoaster of emotions that fans often don’t realise some players clearly have to endure. 

“Sometimes even the people that are trying to help you are only there when you have had a great game. On those days when you make a mistake, you have to take all the responsibility yourself. You have to go home and think and think and think, and you only get relief if your next game is a good one — that’s when you can live normally. It’s a kind of pressure that many footballers have.”

It seems Almunia’s mental fortitude was also tested away from the game; on the business side of football and transfers.

“I finished football tired, very tired,” he says. “What I love about football is the green grass. Outside of football I don’t like… it’s a lot of dishonest people. I don’t like agents’ lies and a lot of people moving around football without honesty.”

After his enforced, yet welcomed, retirement, Almunia moved back to the south of Spain, where he coached young goalkeepers in Huelva, Andalusia. It was a sun-kissed antithesis to the high-level game he had willingly exited. “The club knew I was there so they said, ‘Can you come and train with the goalkeepers? It will be nice for them.’ But it was nothing official,” he says. 

The low-key hiatus in Spain lasted for a year before Gianluca Nani, Watford’s former technical director who was by then working with Al Jazira, offered him the chance to become their goalkeeper coach. Almunia planned to only stay for six months, but instead has been in Abu Dhabi for four years.

“I love the fact that I am doing something that I never expected to do in my life,” he says. “I have a great life. Very relaxed. The weather all year round is fantastic. I have all the time that I want for my hobbies, for my life. I love the people here, the goalkeepers are amazing, they have big hearts. It’s a new culture, a new lifestyle and I’m set up very well here.”

Well paid, no pressure, good people to work with — it’s easy to see the attraction of being outside of the English football pressure cooker.

“I’m not in the mood for professional football. I feel like I don’t need this,” he explains. “I don’t need big games. I don’t need a lot of pressure. I don’t need big stadiums. I don’t need football fans. I like what I have here. They treat me well, they trust me and people are very kind to me. I have a great life.”

Almunia had some great moments during his playing career, though.

The last time Watford played Leicester City and Crystal Palace in consecutive matches — as they have over the last week — came in the final two games of the 2012-13 season. The first, against a Leicester side led by Watford’s new manager Nigel Pearson — a play-off semi-final — was particularly memorable for Almunia. As was the match that followed — albeit for different reasons. “Afterwards, we did a shit final,” Almunia says with brutal honesty. 

Wembley, and the 1-0 defeat to Palace after extra time, indeed didn’t go to plan, but the match that preceded it will always be remembered for the way that it was won. Troy Deeney’s goal was the difference, but it never would have happened without Almunia saving a last-minute Knockaert penalty. When referee Michael Oliver awarded it, after the Frenchman had flopped to the ground under a challenge from Marco Cassetti, Watford fans at Vicarage Road feared the worst; that the season was over, there would be no final. They weren’t alone in that view. 

“On my mind? ‘Tomorrow, I go on holiday to Spain!’ This is my first thought,” says Almunia, before revealing how quickly his mind switched to the job at hand, and the clarity of thought that made a magical moment possible. “I was thinking, this player has a good left foot and will need to make sure the penalty was on goal, so he has to shoot hard. Otherwise he had to open his body like this (showing that he would shoot to Almunia’s right instead) but he would not take the risk, because it’s a big moment, so he would smash the ball, I knew it.”

He was confident. His nearest and dearest, less so. “When the penalty was given my wife left for the players’ lounge.” It was tough to watch, but Almunia then produced not one, but two saves from Knockaert, the original shot and then the follow-up, to deny Leicester passage to Wembley. It was made all the more impressive due to the physical condition the goalkeeper was in having been injured in the warm-up for the final regular season game against Leeds United eight days earlier.

“I was injured, my leg was numb. You can see in the video, I had strapping. I had injections for the pain because my hamstring was broken. I was not fit but I needed to play,” he says. And he had cause to be confident when Knockaert stepped up. “I had seen many videos [of the winger’s penalties] and from many angles. I was just saying ‘OK, let’s go, come on.’ But I didn’t expect we would score.”

After a length-of-the-field counter-attack, they did. It’s a moment that will never be beaten for many Watford fans who were there, but also for the goalkeeper who made it all possible.

Happy @T_Deeney Day! 🙌

Surely one of the greatest moments in football history? pic.twitter.com/yFToUNOxnH

— Watford Football Club (@WatfordFC) May 12, 2019

“I’ve never felt anything else like this in my life. Football gives you these moments, this is what I miss from football — there is nothing that can give you a feeling like it,” he beams, before being reminded of the carnage that followed with a pitch invasion at Vicarage Road. 

“Suddenly someone jumped on me, I had people on top of me, I couldn’t move. Then when I finally stood up, I could see police with their dogs. I went to speak to the ref and he said, ‘No, there’s still one minute left.’ I said, ‘There cannot be one minute. Everybody’s on the pitch. Come on, finish the game. Don’t make us suffer any more!’

“I was thinking, ‘If Leicester put the ball into our box I will shit my pants,’ honestly! And in fact they did and the ball was bouncing on the penalty spot, I dived on it, and then I was screaming, ‘Ah my hand, my hand.’ The referee came to me and said, ‘Almunia, come on. Finish the game.’ I got up, the game finished, the mascot jumped on my back and I fall down again.”

The celebrations that day continued for quite some time, but wouldn’t be matched after the final in that first season of the Pozzo revolution. The next season it would be time up for manager Gianfranco Zola. “He was one of the greatest coaches and men I have ever met, everybody loved him,” says Almunia.

In the December of that season, Zola was replaced by a fellow Italian, Beppe Sannino. “He had a strong character,” Almunia says. “His English was not good, it was difficult for everybody in the squad. I think he didn’t get into the team completely, maybe some players didn’t like him, some people didn’t like the new staff or we compared it with Zola’s staff but it was not the same.

“When you leave a great season and moment like that, to start again and repeat these moments, maybe we were also tired mentally and obligated again to be on the top of the table but another year starting from zero, so it was hard.”

At the end of that season, although there was an option for Almunia to stay for a further year at Watford, all parties agreed they would try other things. It was time to leave.

“We finished with a good relationship, we appreciated each other and what we needed for ourselves. I have good words for Watford, for all the directors and staff, players and everyone. It was a family club and the relationship was very close, we were like friends and family. I felt very well, especially the first year when things went really well. I really enjoyed Watford. I love them,” he says.

Before Watford had come Arsenal.

The clubs have adjoining training grounds in Hertfordshire — which often led to Almunia forgetfully driving into the wrong one after he made the switch in the summer of 2012. “I did that a couple of times at the beginning,” he says with a smile — but were worlds apart in terms of stature.

He’d had his most high profile successes under Arsene Wenger but had also experienced the greatest scrutiny. It’s clear that although he made good friends there, his time playing at Highbury and then the Emirates was where his mental state was tested the most.

“Being part of Arsenal is something that is so big,” says Almunia. “Every morning you cannot believe you’re at Arsenal and you enjoy every single year. But it’s also true that it’s a lot of pressure and a big responsibility.”

It also meant a step up in terms of competition within the squad. Specifically, it meant going into an intense environment with Jens Lehmann.

“When I arrived at Arsenal, all I had known was life at the small teams where the relationship between players was always good because we were not big players, we did not get big money. So when I got to Arsenal and I found this super goalkeeper, one of my idols, one of my favourite goalkeepers ever, I couldn’t believe it. I found that super-professional player with strong character, a winner and I really, really enjoyed [working with him],” he says.

It appeared to be a promising start, but they do say never meet your heroes…

“The problems came when I was very excited and very fit, training well with so much energy and at that same time [Lehmann] wasn’t having his best time at Arsenal, so when Arsene Wenger decided to change the No 1… he’s a winner and he took it very badly, which is normal,” Almunia recalls. “He’s a national-team goalkeeper, big name, and I’m a small goalkeeper from Spain who comes along and makes it difficult for him — he’s thinking, ‘What the hell? This is not possible?’ So yes, we had difficult moments.”

(Photo; Sudarsan, Al Jazira FC)

In Lehmann’s autobiography, he recounts a full-scale argument breaking out between the two on the training pitch. Almunia admits there were times the pair didn’t talk bar exchanging pleasantries. They were on the same team, but opponents at the same time.

“Goalkeepers [on the bench] want the one who is playing to make mistakes — it’s normal. But in training we had to show respect and try to help each other, not make it difficult for each other. It was tough but we got used to it,” he says.

You may think, then, that getting the opportunity to come on in the 2005-06 Champions League final against Barcelona after Lehmann was sent off on 17 minutes would have had Almunia rubbing his hands with glee. Not so. The emotions were quite different.

“I felt sorry for Lehmann because the ref made an unbelievable decision. He was the best goalkeeper in the Champions League in that season; he saved a big penalty in the semi-final. I felt sorry for him because he didn’t deserve that,” he says. “I felt very good in that game, but we couldn’t hold onto the 1-0 lead and we missed two or three one-on-ones, it was a shame.”

Almunia celebrates beating Roma on penalties in 2009 (Photo: Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

By the 2007-08 season, Almunia had moved ahead of Lehmann in the pecking order. The German had not taken it well and left at the end of the season, but not before surprising Almunia with some out-of-character behaviour.

“We had the club dinner. He was with his wife, I was with mine, they came to us and they were unbelievably nice,” he remembers. “They just started talking to us like friends, like nice people, you know? Polite and smiling. I looked at my wife like, ‘What the fuck? Can you believe this?’ But from that moment we had a very good relationship.”

Almunia realises now that while being mentally draining, their daily rivalry did have its benefits. “He’s a great, great man and I learnt so much from him. I was so nice and sometimes in football you need to be tougher. He taught me how to act on the pitch, how to command the team, how to organise the team, how to behave on and off the pitch.”

Having ousted Lehmann, Almunia was soon tipped for international recognition — but not with the country of his birth. Due to residency rules, he qualified to play for England having been at Arsenal since 2004, and newspaper speculation suggested Fabio Capello was considering a call-up ahead of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.

Yet Almunia suggests it was all just a flippant remark that ran out of control.

“I did an interview and the journalist asked me about the Spanish national team. I said, ‘No, it’s not possible, but it’s possible I could try to play for England.’ So after that they all said, ‘OK, he might apply to play for England because he has played there five years already.’ Then the story was growing and growing and I couldn’t stop it. 

“I felt very happy in England — I loved English football, the country and the people. When things go well, you feel you can do anything. And I felt I could play for England. But part of me inside was thinking, ‘What the fuck are you saying? If you play for England, people in England will want to kill you. Then if you go to Spain in the summer, people in Spain will want to kill you too. What are you doing?’ I’m not the kind of person that wants these kind of problems. I never considered it seriously,” he says, setting the record straight. 

After we speak, it’s time for Almunia to head into the stadium and train Al Jazira’s goalkeepers as they prepare for their next game. Diligently he lays out yellow hurdles, white poles and blue ropes for a combination of ‘quick feet’ exercises, he fires crosses in from both sides, then it’s time for some shooting practice.

Six fighter jets fly over the ground in formation at one point, then as training winds down under the instruction of another European on the staff, former Ajax coach Michael Keizer, the call to prayer from a nearby mosque echoes on the evening breeze.

Almunia says he will return to London one day to see friends, but he’s in no rush. The lure of a bigger, more high-profile job doesn’t appeal. Whizzing around on jet-skis in the marina near to his high-end duplex has more allure at this moment. Who can blame him?

We meet by the side of the pitch to say goodbye. He hands me a training top as a souvenir. Before we part, he’s asked to sum up Manuel Almunia in his own words?

“A guy with a massive heart,” he says poignantly. “Too sensitive, now less. Someone who reached higher than I ever expected in my life. Much, much higher — I thought my whole life would be with small teams in Spain. And someone that is happy now that I live here.”