He had weight problems, he went through Colo Colo and U and today he shines in B: “I thought about leaving football”

“I feel better as a winger, I’ve always played on the side of the pitch. Now is the first year that I play offensive midfielder. I really like having the ball, I’m one of those players who needs to have the ball to show off”. Pablo Brito tells AS from Santa Cruz. The midfielder and forward has been one of the good figures in the O’Higgins Region squad, in the rebound that allows him to close the season in Ascenso with some peace of mind in the standings, after being at risk of losing the category.

Brito has a particular soccer history. As a child he went through Colo Colo and Universidad de Chile, he was away from football and, when it seemed that the project of reaching professionalism was extinguished, a last minute call allowed him to materialize his dream in Cobreloa. Before, yes, he had to deal with some difficulties typical of his thin frame. However, today she is excited about what she can live in 2023.

“I was born and raised in the commune of San José de Maipo, in Cajón de Maipo, in Santiago. From a very young age I was involved in soccer, because my family is one hundred percent soccer fans. I was lucky to have relatives working in soccer, an uncle was a paramedic, and I stayed at the U. It didn’t go well for me there and I went to Colo Colo. Then the same thing happened and they also fired me, because of how skinny I’ve always been skinny and when I was a kid I always had that problem. So I went back to the U and I was a little older, I was 13 years old. After a while the same thing happened, they told me that I was very thin, that they needed players with more muscle mass”, confidence Brit, 24 years old.

– What did he do then?

– I took some time, I thought about quitting football and dedicated myself to my studies. Then I started attending a soccer school in Cobreloa in San José de Maipo. It went well for us, we won many championships, we went on tours of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay. On one occasion, we played a friendly with the Cobreloa cadets and tied at two and I scored both goals. I drew attention, because it is complicated for a team from a soccer school to draw against a team of cadets. And so I came to Cobreloa in 2014.

– And in the Calama squad he was finally able to reach professional football…

– Sure, I joined the Sub 15 and was up to the Sub 16 in Santiago. At first I was not on the list of players who were going to go to Calama to the Sub 17 and then I was free. I went to test Audax, I passed the entire test stage and just when they were going to register me in the category, they told me that I had to go to Calama. As my father is a fan of Cobreloa and I am also a fan of the club, I went there, I did not think twice. Of course I almost didn’t leave, because before traveling, my mom overturned her car. In the end she told me to just go away, that it wouldn’t stop me from sleeping.

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– How was that stage in the city?

– I had never been to Calama and it was all new to me. It was a different environment, I came from a lot of nature and I came to a place that was only desert. On top of that, just that year when we arrived in Calama with other colleagues from Santiago, Cobreloa was deducted points and relegated to Primera B. Everything was more difficult then. Then teacher César Bravo took charge of the first team and that’s where I started playing.

– Then he had to go on loan to Limache and had to go down one category, to the Second Division.

– Of course, teacher Víctor Riveros arrived and spoke with me. He told me that he was not going to have many opportunities to play, because many players had arrived on the squad. That he was going to send me on loan and that there was the possibility of going to Limache. It was very different football, the truth is that I had never been kicked so much, but that made me see football differently and take more risks on the pitch. Before I was very innocent and the truth is that football helped me a lot.

– What happened that in the long run you had to leave Cobreloa?

– When I returned to Calama, Fantasma (Marco Antonio) Figueroa took over and he knew me from before, because when I arrived in the city he had already been coach of the first team. He supported me a lot, I was able to play a lot with him. He talked to me and told me that he would have liked to put me in the starting lineup, but that he was doing better going into the second half. Later he spent time and now he had agreed to sign a two-year contract at the club, but there were elections. The new board called me and they told me that the coach wanted me. I was waiting for the tickets to travel when they called me again and told me that the board wanted me, but that the coach didn’t, because they planned to take (Maximiliano) Ceratto.

– Then he chose to sign in Santa Cruz.

– There were other teams too, but I chose to come here because I have relatives. At the beginning everything went well and we did well in the friendlies, I thought we were going to always be fighting at the top. I don’t know what happened on the way, because we stayed. But here I feel very comfortable, the people and teammates received me very well. I was left, yes, that little thorn of being able to do more or that we were in another situation in the championship. We had other expectations of how we were going to be this year.

– What do you expect for 2023?

– First I want to finish in good shape this year. Later, if there is the possibility of continuing here, I have no problem. I am happy, the city accommodates me and I am close to my family. I spent seven years in Calama and very rarely traveled to be with my family and I missed many things. I am also not closed to the possibility of going to another club, thinking about the future.

– You said that in your formative stage you had some difficulties because of your thin frame. Now in professional football have you taken special care with that?

– He was very thin, he weighed almost 55 kilos. At age 16, I was with a nutritionist and she recommended that I start taking Ensure and after that came a stage of injecting neurobionta and food supplements. I was like this for two years. It was expensive just the same at the beginning, but I don’t know how my parents did it and they helped me a lot with that. They were able to buy me the necessary things, I was able to gain muscle mass and from there I reached the weight that they had recommended for me, which was between 60 and 65 kilos. Now I am always with food supplements, I am thin, but today I look a little thicker.