Loaned out Valencia winger Samu Castillejo has revealed that he gave up a hefty amount of money to join Los Che last summer.
The ex-Villarreal winger has been remarkably honest in his latest interview, revealing that his stint with Marcelino Garcia Toral forced him to go into therapy. Things have not quite worked out as planned since joining Valencia, and this summer he became someone that the club were trying desperately to get rid of in order to free up space in their salary limit.
It was Gennaro Gattuso who convinced him to head to Valencia in the first place.
“He was the one who managed everything, the one who moved everything, the one who called me and told me – ‘No, forget about this, forget about this.’ It is true that I also really, really wanted to go to Valencia and I already had the opportunity to go in the winter market prior to the summer market and the possibility did not come about, and the truth is that it was a club that I wanted to go to to play. I gave up a lot of money because Valencia’s financial situation was what it is, and I decided to go play there because I wanted a new challenge, because I wanted to play and because the coach wanted me to be there.”
Castillejo said he went into negotiations with honest intentions.
“Yes, yes, I had other options, in the Italian championship, in Spain too, elsewhere, but he calls you and removes your doubt with two shouts. ‘No, no, forget about the rest. Forget about the rest. Do everything you can to come here.’ And the first thing I said was, ‘I don’t care about money, I don’t care about money, I want to go play there.’ And everything was closed in less than a week.”
“I gave up a lot of money to play there,” revealing when pressed by Relevo exactly how much – “Yes, two million euros.”
Castillejo had been receiving criticism from fans for demanding too much money, as Castillejo remained out of reach.
“Yes, but hey, the easy thing now is to say in the summer market that ‘no, he only cares about money and so on’, just to be able to point to someone. I have a fairly clear conscience in that sense, that I have always given my best. I have always looked for others’ profit before my own, but there came a time when you say, ‘Well, I’m is not stupid either.’ From good to stupid there is a very fine line that I did not want to cross it. My people know what happened, my family, me, and that’s enough for me. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone else.”
Ahead of Castillejo’s loan move to Sassuolo, he was accused of holding onto his place at Valencia as he wanted to continue on the same money. He received plenty of criticism and even abuse for the matter.
