'I played for Leeds and Real Madrid but get up at 5.30am for new job away from football'

Real Madrid shipped 21-year-old defender Raul Bravo off on loan to Leeds at the start of 2003 as the ace waited patiently for his opportunity to impress in La Liga. He only featured six times for the Yorkshire giants but broke into the Real side on his return to Madrid the very next season.

The player was a regular in the Champions League and Spanish top-flight during the 2003/04 campaign and was the starting left-back for Spain at Euro 2024.

He ultimately fell down the pecking order at the Bernabeu in the following years and signed for Olympiacos in 2007. The left-back went on to play for a whole host of clubs before retiring in 2022. And he now gets up at 5.30am and works as an interior designer.

“When I hung up my boots I said to myself, ‘What do I do now?’ When you stop playing football, the first year is very complicated,” the now 43-year-old told AS as he discussed his new career.

“You don’t even know where you are. A very bad feeling. It happens to all players. I liked decorating houses, thinking about them and designing them.

“But when a client came they asked me where I had studied and what training I had. I told them, ‘Nowhere’. It was complicated.

“With the money I had saved I bought several houses and decorated them my way, with my ideas and my inspiration.

“I renovated them and then made my catalogue and uploaded it to my Instagram. It must be that people liked it because I started selling them.

“I have cool work. It’s my calling card as a decorator and interior designer. And the houses work, my friend. There is light, hot water…”

Bravo finished his playing career with 14 caps for Spain and 132 appearances for Real Madrid. And he is certainly grateful for his life after football. “I am privileged. I am very happy with what I do. I get up at 5.30am in the morning. At 6.30am I am in the gym until 7.30am,” he added.

“I go home and take the children to school. And at 9.15am I am already with my routine with my collaborators in case we have an issue with rubble or partitions in some new project.

“Or some kitchen that has been newly built. It is not a job for me. I enjoy it and I have a great time. On top of that, [at home] in Gandia I have peace and quiet, a spectacular beach that I can walk from end to end in eight minutes. Then I can have a beer with friends. What more could I ask for?”