He has a hard expression, as if he could only express himself with ease on a football field. However, it is only an appearance. Pedro Porro (Don Benito, 26 years old) likes to talk. Of football, of course, but also of his life. He doesn’t hide his falls or his past, especially emotional when he talks about his grandfather: the person who forged his competitive spirit, the one who cut his teeth in Rayo’s youth team and who allowed him to make his debut in the First Division with Girona, and then pass through Valladolid and Sporting de Portugal before making the leap to the Premier League with Tottenham. Along the way, he managed to consolidate himself in Luis de la Fuente’s calls for the senior national team, which today plays against Georgia to try to seal qualification for the 2026 World Cup (18.00, La1). It wasn’t easy for Porro, but nothing was. And he, curiously, enjoys it.
“If I scored two goals as a child, my grandfather wanted four. He instilled in me that ambition that made me bigger,” explains Porro, sitting in the stands of the main pitch of Las Rozas Soccer City. He is funny when he interacts with his companions, serious in conversation with EL PAÍS. He never loses his kindness, nor his desire to explain his past. “When I was little my grandfather always accompanied me everywhere,” he explains. A habit he didn’t lose even when he moved to the Rayo quarry in Vallecas. “My family was not rich. There is a day that I always remember. A match between the Extremadura team against the Madrid team. He arrived by car at three or four in the morning. He stayed to sleep in the car. A phenomenon.”
Between his grandfather’s love and demands, Porro has forged a character that almost forgets successes to focus on mistakes. As if joy were ephemeral and the bitterness of mistakes a tattooed lesson. “I’m a player who likes to see his evolution, who likes to correct mistakes, who has ambitions and who gets back up if he makes a mistake. This is my personality,” he explains. Of course, working on one’s deficits doesn’t bother either coaches or analysts. “I go home, play repeatedly and stop wherever I want. There are many situations in which the ball comes to you and if you have analyzed it, you make the pass from memory. It can go wrong, but you already have it in your head. That’s why I like to watch myself.”
And, with that sort of long-suffering habit, he focuses on his bad games. “In good moments I know that, for example, I have my offensive characteristic, that is, maximum self-confidence. But above all I focus more on the defensive. People have always encouraged me on this issue, but…”, he reflects. He takes a pause and continues: “They tell you things, but criticism isn’t something that inhibits me when I play. For two or three years I’ve been focusing more on defensive issues, because while playing I have the feeling that I can improve. Criticism doesn’t bother me, it makes you stronger.”
The requests of the Premier League, then, are sweet for the competitive Porro. “Every weekend you face world-class wingers. They make you concentrate 100% at all times: you have to concentrate on what you have to do,” says the Roja full-back, focused above all on his positioning on the pitch. “I come from the outside. Positioning is very important. It’s not the same as in a change of orientation you position yourself in a certain way or another. Because, for example, if you look the other way and the outside runs towards you, you no longer have time”, he underlines. And he insists: “Defensive work is an accumulation of things. One-on-one play is also important. Bringing the opponent’s bad leg further to the outside, not letting him enter. These are things that I’m slowly correcting. And the truth is that if you see the matches from before and you see the ones from now, you see that they are at a different level.”
And he’s so focused on improving his defensive end that he even doubts whether he’d rather sign a contract. equipment for help on your payroll. “Right now I would tell you that I’m in equipment… That mentality is good. When you make a defensive cut, that translates into intensity. And that intensity gives you more.” He progresses in defence, without erasing his past as a winger from his memory. “I like to talk to the area attackers before matches,” says the Tottenham player. And he details the conversations with his teammates: “If you see me more towards the back line, stay a little further back and I’ll hit you…”, “If you see me running, attack the space, I’ll put it in front of you”. Immediately afterwards, he concludes: “Those things are what I like.”
However, he likes few things in football more than Roja. “I left home as a child to pursue my goals and it’s not easy. The national team was one of those goals. Sometimes people think that now, since I’ve been in professional football, they’ve given me everything. I think that sometimes they don’t know what an athlete goes through from an early age: while the rest of the children enjoy their family and childhood, you have to work every day, stay away from home, go to schools that aren’t yours and without your friends. You have to do everything new. And it’s not easy in Everything. Nobody gives you anything and it’s for this is what I continue to appreciate today”, explains his emotion on the day of his debut with Spain in March 2021, with Luis Enrique as coach, against Georgia.
From dream to nightmare, his debut for Spain was marred by a bad match. It took him seven months to get back in the squad and two years to play again. It was only in October 2024 that he established himself as one of De la Fuente’s regular guests, now starting at right back since Carvajal is in the infirmary. “After that debut I was no longer worried. If you work, life gives you new opportunities. This is what my grandfather always made me believe”, he explains. My grandfather returns, also because of his failed debut with Tottenham: “If I hadn’t had that bad match against Leicester when I made my debut at Tottenham, maybe I wouldn’t have worked like I do now in the afternoons in the gym. That’s why I keep the bad moments, they always leave you with something beautiful.”
Always with the memory of my grandfather, always with the lesson learned: “There are good moments, of course there are, but I learn more from the bad ones.” It doesn’t change, better to score four goals than two, better to learn from the bad than rejoice in the good.
