21 February 2022
21 February 2022

Molina: "Happy to be playing for Udinese. I’m learning a lot"

The wing-back speaks to Udinese TV

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Nahuel Molina was the guest in this week's episode of Udinese Tonight. This is what he told us.

“At the start of last season, I wasn’t playing very much, then I started to get more and more game time. It was really nice to look back at everything I’ve done since arriving at Udinese. 
 
“During the last year and a half, a lot of things happened very quickly and I haven’t had time to process all of them. To win the Copa America was just incredible. 
 
“As soon as I found out Udinese were interested in signing me, I accepted straight away, I’ve blossomed here. Italian football is very different to Argentina and I have learned a lot at Udinese. I’m very happy to be here. 
 
“Thanks to Udinese I’ve learned to always remain concentrated during every passage of play and that’s allowed me to increase the quality of my game compared to when I was in Argentina. 
 
“I want to keep improving to help the team. I’m not sure if I see myself as a defender or more of an attacker, all I know is that I always want to be playing. 
 
“At the start of the season I felt the strain of everything that I went through: my body could feel the effects of all the travelling I did to play for Argentina. Now I feel better.
 
“I started my career as a forward, a striker, so defensively I still have a lot to improve on. 
 
“When I hit the crossbar against Lazio my only thought was to shoot at goal as hard as possible. “A point is always good to take but I believe we could have got all three. We put in a really good performance, and we were disappointed. Now we need to focus and look ahead to Friday’s match against Milan. There are always things we can improve. Even after our victory against Torino we felt like we needed to improve. We lost our match against Verona and it was a shame because we tried a lot of moves in attack. It wasn’t the performance that we wanted but in my opinion we’re headed in the right direction. 
 
“The difference between Argentina and Italy is in the tactics and the intensity of the game. In Italy you always need to think ahead; you can’t afford to reflect afterwards. 
 
“I started playing football as a kid. My father is a coach in Argentina and my brothers also play football. I left home when I was 11 years old and moved to Buenos Aires: that’s where it all started. I have five brothers; they are always supporting me. My entire family are behind me. 
 
“I can’t describe what happened with the national team. Playing alongside champions like [Leo] Messi is incredible. Messi surprised me as a person, he makes you feel comfortable and normal. It’s not only him: that comment is true for all the other champions that I’d only ever watched on television. 

“When I arrived at Udinese, [Rodrigo] De Paul took me under his wing. In training he put me under pressure to improve. Juan [Musso], Tucu [Pereyra] and Nacho [Pussetto] were pivotal to my development too. Luckily there were many Argentinians who helped me out. 
 
“I think I have a similar style to [Juan] Cuadrado, although he is more offensive than I am. 
 
“I would like to thank the fans for all their support. We will always work hard to win as many points as possible.”