Stoh, what first attracted you to the island of Gran Canaria with its 235km of coastline, beautiful beaches, beautiful golf courses, where the climate is 25C today, not a strip like back in Nottingham or Sheffield, and a football team where you can improve Kylian Mbappé and happy Barcelona? “Oli was here,” McKenna Scott said. He laughed and then the man sitting next to him started laughing.
On July 25 Unión Deportiva Las Palmas announced They signed Oliver Robert McBurnie, the first Scottish player in their history, and only the second British Vinny Samwayswhether icon on the island They had another two weeks, McKenna reuniting with her old husband. Now here in the sunshine at Barranco Seco: the original two oddballs. One defender, one striker. One is at rest, the first of which died in a gracefully drawn line, the second falling into eternity. “Me and Scott are so different, opposites,” McBurnie says. “He’s so laidback. In the best way, he’s a grumpy old man. I call him my grandfathermy Atta.”
“I” to think it’s an honor,” McKenna says.
There are some pairs, living life. “It was an opportunity to come here: a different league, a top one,” McKenna said. “Unless you play for a League team, you will never have the opportunity to play for Madrid or Barcelona. My father was in Nivara for six months a year not far away. And signing Oli for the first time made it easier.
Yes, but how is it done? McBurnie was stuck in McKenna’s transfer. “Yeah, I tried to convince him not to sign,” the Sheffield United striker says with a laugh. “When I joined, Louis [Helguera, the sporting director] He called me and asked about Scott. We played together for years. He was under contract, like me, and he could choose. It’s funny, the real estate clubs that offered us were the same. They certainly seemed to be interested in something ‘British’ in a different style. Among the Scots, especially. Palms He said: we need a defender, who is strong, corporeal, and wins duels.
“Even simpler,” says McKenna, “he only needed height.”
“Oh definitely,” McBurnie replies with a smile, his arm raised high. “The first thing everyone told us was:Great! great!I think the scouts saw them struggling with the pieces. It was good for us. This was one where I thought I would regret it if I didn’t give it a chance. I had been in Sheffield for five years, it was a time of change.
“I already had one other Spanish club, but Las Palmas was making a presentation saying what they needed, how they play, where I meet, everything about the island and the culture. They had footage of me from years before, they did their research they really wanted me to feel. I know they did the same with Scott. And he flew to look around before signing, we went to dinner and talked about it. I will ask about my commission.”
Within three weeks of completing McBurnie’s job as agent, both started as Real Madrid held on to lead Las Palmas. Only held there is no word: Madrid needed a penalty, the islanders did not hesitate to win. And while McKenna admits it wasn’t the most pleasant game for the visitors, he traveled more than a thousand miles, and McBurnie says it was Atlético those who were most impressed, that night, who seem to have caught something of culture and quality in training.
“That Madrid game was when I fully realized that playing in Spain was different,” McBurnie says. “You know when you’re at Sheffield United or Forest and you play Manchester City away and you put 19 men behind the ball and they try to draw 0-0? I don’t like it. I was amazed by the quality after a few days of training: the ability in small spaces to catch the ball anywhere. That night we had the ball, they played some really good stuff, they created chances. It was the most enjoyable part for me…anyway. I think the Scots would rather have 19 men behind the ball!”
For a defender it is different. It was less – “less far” – and only one at the beginning of the book. “But there are a few teams that have gone straighter than I expected though, and in the last few weeks [since Las Palmas changed coach and appointed Diego Martínez] We did this too,” McKenna says. “It depends on what league you’re in and the position you’re in too. Always in the forest he wanted to play we tried. But you find it in the Premier League. We switched to sitting and playing on the counter, and we were much better.
“There are passes that” [teammates here] you may not see danger, but rather I like danger. In England, it might be: Don’t play inside where all the bodies are. But here the central midfielders can stick together, even though many are pushing them.
McBurnie chips in. “It’s nice that you can just give it to the midfielders – you’ve said it a lot of times. For me, looking at the Scots, it is his confidence to trust them. Play it for what it is, staff. And if you lose, it’s not your fault. In England, the manager is often like: ‘Why are you playing cross?’ And if you are in two minds, you will be long-minded. Here is a ‘passing story’, a passing game, a passing game. In midfield training they have three men around them and they still cry out to the Scot to give it.
And not only in Madrid, the match was broadcast at the height of popularity. And although Las Palmas have struggled, losing five of their last six, they have recovered under Martinez, who is pressing matters. They turned to something a little more like what the Scots had known before – “I think it’s easier for us to go back to passing than to the young Spaniards”, McKenna admits – and Las Palmas got four six under him. victory in Barcelona last Saturdaytheir first there in 53 years.
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One of McKenna’s local papers said he was determined to be brave, as William Waleys had previously reported to him. On the third day, McBurnie, who played less with the change, even though Martínez impressed, scored two in the Copa del Rey. Mentally, he thought it might have been eight. Still, “little by little, brotherhe said. brother by parts
So the Spaniards arrive? The language of football is a bit easy and the swear words come early, though fucking his motherapparently the worst expression applied to the best of all, mixed up linguistic fables and struck down tales inspired by horror. They learn separately with different teachers and methods, who think differently, but everything comes together again, which feels appropriate. “We all speak Spanish,” McBurnie said. “I understand one half, Scott understands the other and we get through it. We’re doing it right, aren’t we? You’re getting there.”
“We came in the morning: “What did you learn yesterday?” McKenna says. “The problem is that the players want to do it in Latin. My teacher wants me to speak properly and carefully. Oli will soon go to one. There he gets faster. When you rewrite people not in the right book, I find it more difficult. I say; ‘I don’t talk much’ But try Spanish – I don’t speak much Spanish, but I try – and it works well. They were very famous people. Things are so different, both laidback and brought back home.
That was just work, McBurnie in particular. This year has been difficult. The the death of his friend George Baldock he was devastated, his grandmother passed away, and his brother Xander was through Hodgkin’s lymphoma, now thankfully beaten. Coming to Las Palmas helped me start a new life and a new way of life, an opportunity to leave the pressure, the intrusion. It is nice to be left alone. “I remember, 100%,” said McBurnie. “We’re totally different people, though,” McKenna adds.
“Scott is so cool, he never gets into any trouble, any categories, anything; he just has an easy way out. And it definitely passed me by, and that’s kind of the fun side of it. I love the genre, but I can’t have both. it was He was not found guilty of the attack after the invasion in May 2022 and a year before the warning was issued after an altercation in the street when someone went to meet him.
“My messenger,” said McBurnie. “Beat me all you want, but that’s it. I just have to, just like that [left it]. I’m in Leeds, it’s normal: I had that when I was 16. But it’s new, she doesn’t know this world, you know? It’s like: what’s going on? There are three children. of course it’s [scary]. She is only five minutes from home, where she wants to feel safe, and her three children go to her. Again, I was probably at fault, but I’m a normal person, you know?
“He’s a footballer, he gets a lot of money so he’ll never have to act the way a man normally reacts. i take I totally get it. I understand that we are in a position of dignity, but in the heat of the moment we are wrongly judged. “People’s role model…” You will never have me as your role model. I now want to be more like my grandfather. Here, I have not. I, too, have grown up a little: I am a father, I have I’ve kind of forgotten about all that already, but it’s nice not to be hassled. Don’t get any pain.
Furthermore, if anyone is going to go here, don’t understand anyway. “That can’t be done,” McKenna replies, all is pretty much ideal on the island. “Even when we lost, there was no negativity at all. It’s always positive, it’s always supportive.”
“We’re both signed for three years and we intend to stay, aren’t we?” McBurnie says he turned to his friend. “Whatever happens, we will give the Spanish. But Ian is better. My daughter is five months old and it’s a wonderful place to grow up. She will have English, Welsh and Spanish. Here he made me see how great a thing languages are; I was a countryman a little while ago, you never think you need a foreign language. But add Spanish, and you have the middle world. It’s beautiful to live here, the weather is perfect, it’s great for golf…and football isn’t bad.