Fullback Manuel Pablo recovered from a terrible injury that almost ended his career a long time ago. However, many claim that he still bears psichologycal scars that make him afraid of playing with full intensity. Ought to be one of the best fullbacks in Europe, Manuel Pablo is not a regular for Depor in recent times. Yet, he feels supported by coach Irureta and that is making him to improve game after game. Will he complete his personal comeback? Q. How does Manuel Pablo feel? A. I feel very good. I'm feeling better than in the past and that's very important for a defender. Q. The coach's trust must help in that, as well as playing as many games as possible... A. Of course. I'm convinced about that. Regularity in games makes you feel good and achieve a level of fitness that you can't achieve by training only. It's critical to get the pace, the rhythm of the competition, if you want to perform well. Q. Do you feel supported by coach Irureta? A. Well, I've been working with him for six years. If I didn't feel supported by him I couldn't be encouraged by anyone else. We have a very good player-coach relationship and that's all I ask for. Q. Scaloni's injury will probably give you the chance to play Betis. A. That's the coach's decision. I'm very satisfied with these last games I've played. There have always been 'rotations' in my position, and I honestly don't know who's going to play. Every players just wants to be in the starting line-up and play all the games he can, there's not doubt about that. Q. What worries you about your next opponent? A. They play at a very high pace. They have very good attacking players on the wings. Q. Among all the positions in Depor, is the right fullback the most disputed one? A. I believe that all positions are difficult in you want to be a regular, and especially in a team like Depor, with such a large squad. The coach may not be happy sometimes and he changes the formation, but not just because we're three players sharing that position. It's true that sometimes we're injured and sometimes we simply make mistakes, and that's why he keeps on swapping players for that position. Q. At Anoeta, against Real Sociedad, we could see a great Manuel Pablo... A. I've played my best game this season. I felt physically very well during the ninety minutes. Things went well for me and I began to trust in myself. At the end we achieved victory. This is going to give me strength to keep on working. Q. How do you see next game against AC Milan? A. Very difficult. We've being playing in Champions League for four consecutive years and we know that it has nothing to do with the Liga. It's true that our moral is high because we won Real Sociedad, and we trust we can do it again against Betis, but when we face Milan that will be a different story. Q. Is it possible to score three goals? A. Of course it's possible to score three goals. But one thing is true: we'll have to take risks. We'll have to go for it from the start, and we must remember that such a strategy can go well or terribly wrong. Q. Do you see any weaknesses in the Italians? A. To be honest I see very few. Last week in their league they had a very complicated game and they even went two goals down. What we have to do is to score goals, try to send them back to their own box and hope we're a bit lucky. Maybe we'll have to forget about defending for a while… and hope we're lucky. Q. Do you still believe that Depor can make something big in the Liga this year? A. We hope to keep on putting pressure on the top teams. We also know that if things don't go well this Wednesday against Milan we have to able to forget about that and focus on the Liga only. Q. You have not been called to the Spanish national team for while. How do you feel about that? A. We have to be realistic. The first thing I have to do is to play regularly in my team. The national team comes after that, but only if you do things right. If you don't play regularly it's very difficult they'll call you. I don't think that because of a game anyone can say that 'the best Manuel Pablo is back', and that I'm very good again. Also, I think that if you have a poor game it's not right to say that you're very bad, that you're a bad player. You simply have to play regularly and show you're improving little by little. Q. What is you goal this season? A. I hope to keep on playing as I did at Anoeta. I want to continue like this and play regularly, so this can be something more than a good game. I want to finish the season in good form. That'd be very important for me. Q. Which are your favourite teams for the Euro 2004? A. Spain have a good chance, although we didn't play all that good recently. France, Italy and England are the strongest for me. I don't think there'll be any surprise. Q. Who do you think is going to be the star in the Euro 2004 in Portugal? A. To be honest I believe that Henry is in good shape and he'll be crucial for France. He's scoring more than in previous years and he has already demonstrated how important he is for Arsenal. Q. And in the Champions League? A. Shevchenko is scoring a lot of goals in Italy. Another impressive player is Kaka. I like how he plays very much. These are the two I really like. --

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