After saving the crucial spot-kick to win the penalty shootout for his team, David Raya feels tonight’s victory over Porto is right up there in his career accomplishments.
The shot-stopper came up big for us when it mattered most, as he managed to push away Galeno’s shot to record a 4-2 success in the penalty competition after Leandro Trossard’s goal secured a 1-0 success on the night to force sudden death.
And now that means he could well be lining up between our posts in a Champions League quarter-final next month, when he is hoping there could be more special memories created as an incredible campaign continues.
Describing the moment he sent us into the last eight, David said: “It’s an incredible feeling, after everything we’ve done. We weren’t happy with the result over there and getting the result here, and we scored the goal that we needed to have the chance.
“I think we could have scored a few more, but credit to Porto as well, they played a really good game. They played their game and made things very difficult for us, but in the end, it went down to penalties and the players did their part, scored the goals and I was lucky enough to save two.
“I think it’s one of the biggest moments in my career, my whole career. I put it up there and hopefully there’s many more to come here.”
David’s stop meant the keeper was able to bask in the adulation of the home crowd who had roared us on throughout and heaped pressure on the Porto players as they stepped up from 12 yards.
He feels that going through the situations we’ve been through in both legs will stand us in good stead, whoever we’re pitted against in Friday’s draw.
“The fans have been fantastic; they’ve been fantastic for a long time,” he continued. “Especially today, we needed them. They made some noise and got us through spells in which we needed them. They were there for us, and we were there for them.
“We had the fans behind our goal as well and that put a lot of pressure on them and that worked for us. I think that helped us to win the penalty shootout.
“I think [this win] is going to give us a big push and give us some experience and some learnings. We need to learn a lot of things as well; I thought we managed the game very well in the end which we didn’t do over there, so we’ll learn from that and take the positives and learn from the negatives as well.”
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