Borja Bastón: "We want to put Zaragoza back where we belong"

The smile he has on his face from the moment he dons his training bib until he climbs into his car to leave R. Zaragoza's Ciudad Deportiva betrays his good form. "I'm not the striker of the moment, it's all thanks to the team!", says Borja Bastón (b. Madrid, 1992) time and again as he talks to LFP.es before the clash with Real Betis.

With nine goals, the young striker is the top scorer for a team that are seventh in the Liga Adelante, but thinking big and with their sights set on the Liga BBVA. They will take the next step towards this goal on matchday 13 after two defeats on the trot. 

"The boss doesn't need to motivate us much; we’re young and determined"

"We've had a couple of poor games in which we didn't play the way we would have liked", Bastón laments. But he always thinks positively: "Against Betis we have a great opportunity at home and against a team that, like us, are a Liga BBVA side, and deserve to be up there".

The striker gives off good energy and it epitomises a young and buoyant squad that, as he says, "does not need motivation". "We have built a good group, in which we all get on and that shows on the field. Each player comes to training with a lot of determination and a desire to put Zaragoza back where we belong. The boss just adds the finishing touches, which ultimately are just details", he admits.

The situation is even more commendable given how the squad was formed for this season. "They were special circumstances", says Bastón, who added: "The players trickled in and there were many who joined almost at the end of the pre-season". They have already taken the hardest step and now he believes that "The team will try to stay united in order to keep fighting from game to game and to be up there in the final stages". 

"I always think of the group and try to provide goals and assists"

He laughs when he repeats the words "game to game", a phrase that has established itself in Spanish football after it was uttered by Diego Pablo Simeone, a manager that Bastón shared the pre-season with, in 2011-12. "It's fashionable, but it's the reality!" he jokes.

After several years in the Rojiblanco academy, Bastón went on loan to Real Murcia CF, SD Huesca and RC Deportivo, where he scored ten goals last season, one more than the nine he has so far in this campaign, in just eleven matches. "I always think of the group and try to provide goals and assists," he says.

And as if improving his own record was not a personal challenge, the young striker, one of the gems of the Liga Adelante, takes stock of the opening stages of the season before leaving to continue his day: "It has been a very nice year so far. Hopefully we can continue like this, so the fans keep supporting us and we can go to the top".