David Raya Speaks Following Superior Saves: ‘The fans have been fantastic’

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29-year-old goalkeeper David Raya who stopped two goals at the penalty shootouts that decided the Champions League match between Arsenal and FC Porto spoke for himself later, saying that Gunners’ fans were fantastic.

Both teams accumulated a 1-1 match aggregate, but the double saves sent Arsenal into the quarter finals.

‘It’s an incredible feeling, after everything we’ve done,’ the Spanish goalkeeper said post-match. ‘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.

‘The fans have been fantastic; they’ve been fantastic for a long time.

‘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.’

Raya’s humble comment was an interesting thing to hear.