From winning the Champions League with Real Madrid… to interior design
Former Spanish international defender revealed, in an interview with AS, his taste for decorating properties and recalled a lie ‘preached’ to Carlos Queiroz
Life has many twists and turns and the post-professional football career is often a puzzle for many footballers. This was not the case for Raúl Bravo. In a long interview with AS, the former defender, who retired from football in 2022, playing for the modest UD Beniopa, in the amateur ranks of Spanish football, recalled his career and also what followed.
Coming from the Merengues’ youth system, Raúl Bravo was seen as one of the ‘ugly ducklings’ of the galactic Real Madrid , where names such as Iker Casillas, Roberto Carlos, Luís Figo, David Beckham, Zinedine Zidane and Ronaldo Fenómeno were prominent and, he recalled, he even had to lie to Carlos Queiroz in order to get more opportunities.
«In the summer of 2003, I returned to Real Madrid [I spent a year on loan at Leeds in England] and I was a starter almost from the start of the season. Everyone knows how difficult it is to play for Real, but I played about 50 games that season. In pre-season, Queiroz asked me if I had ever played as a centre-back, because that was the only chance I could get into the team. I had never played there in my life, but I told him yes. I was going to tell him the truth and not let the opportunity pass me by… I started the season as a centre-back, it worked and I never left. We were champions», recalled the left-footed player, who began his career as a left-back.
After hanging up his boots, Raúl Bravo had to ‘make a living’ and found interior design as his new hobby.
“Now I fix houses and I’m an interior designer. When I finished my career, I thought ‘what do I do now?’. When you leave football, the first year is very complicated, very tough. It happens to all players. With the money I saved, I bought several houses and decorated them in my own way, with my own ideas. I made my catalogue, posted it on Instagram and, apparently, people started to like it, because I started selling everything,” said Raúl Bravo.
