The new Kumbulla: mentally reinforced, “aggressive” and Latin
The Espanyol centre-back, who is expected to make his comeback against Girona, is assessing his life after the torn cruciate ligament he suffered with Roma and his adaptation to Barcelona, Manolo González, his partnership with Cheddira...
With an injury to the pectineus muscle in his left leg, which he suffered in the first half of the derby against Barcelona and from which he will have recovered to face Girona next Saturday (18:30), Marash Kumbulla reflects on what his first months at Espanyol have been like. On loan from Roma, what has changed since he suffered a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee against Milan on April 29, 2023, which gave rise to a new player. A new person.
“After the injury, I needed to play with that continuity I hadn’t had in recent seasons. Espanyol convinced me from a technical point of view that going to Barcelona was the right decision,” the center-back explained in an interview with Radio TV Serie A. “When I spoke to the club, they didn’t guarantee me a starting place, but they said they had a lot of faith in me. And that was what convinced me,” he says.
From that serious injury, Kumbulla has learned that “ it takes a long time to get back to the way you were before ” and that “now it’s just a matter of being consistent and playing as much as possible.” “ I don’t think about the future, I concentrate on the present. Even just training every day makes me very happy,” he says. And he admits that he needed psychological support, “and I have no problem saying that. It helped me a lot to look inside myself to understand what is good for me and what is not. It was a fundamental aspect of my recovery.”
“It helped me a lot to look inside myself to understand what is good for me and what is not”
Kumbulla defines himself as “a very aggressive defender ” who likes “contact with the striker” and chooses between a “more tactically advanced ” Italian style of football and a “more technical ” Spanish style of play. “In Serie A there is less fantasy and perhaps less spectacle, but that doesn’t mean our championship is any less beautiful,” says the Italian-Albanian.
“I found out about his story a few weeks after my arrival, but you could immediately see that he was a humble and friendly person,” explains the center-back about Manolo González ’s origins. He adds about the coach that “he likes to joke with the players, and that is something that is highly valued. That is why we give everything for him on the pitch. In addition, tactically he is very prepared,” he adds.
Kumbulla says he feels “ wonderful ” with his family in Barcelona. “The weather is great and it is a beautiful city. Also, as a Latino, I feel very comfortable in Spain,” he says.
He has adapted, as he understands and speaks Spanish (“My teammates are very surprised by my skills and my progress,” he says); and, just in case, he teams up with Walid Cheddira: “We became a team with him from the beginning and we have a good relationship. We hope to continue moving forward together,” says the Albania international, who Sylvinho initially called up for these weeks but ended up releasing at Espanyol’s request