'Hardest league in world can also be greatest place to learn'
You are Andres Garcia. You are 22 years old and six weeks ago you were playing in the Spanish second division. You were quietly impressing good judges, but mostly unknown outside that league, yet to experience top-division or international football at any level.
Now you are at Villa Park, playing in the world's biggest domestic league, selected by one of your country's most decorated coaches. Just a few yards away is Marco Asensio, among the finest players in your nation's recent history. And facing you is many people's idea of the strongest side in Europe.
Amid all the noise and pomp, you settle to your work, shuttling up and down your flank, you fizz over a couple of good crosses, win a corner, rouse the fans in the North Stand. You seem to belong here.
And then, for only an instant, your concentration glitches under pressure. Your pass runs straight to Diogo Jota. You clasp your hands to your head, helpless, and in just four seconds Liverpool turn your mistake into a goal.
You stare at the turf. Now what? Do you shrink or stand up?
"The young players, they have to get their own process," Unai Emery told me later. "I think Andres Garcia's potential is really huge, we can exploit, and because his orientation with us has been so quick, he is not really playing feeling uncomfortable. He is playing more or less in our idea, getting his position and getting his qualities in our structure. His process is like that."
Emery trusts his processes and Garcia should too. Hopefully, he was reassured by his manager's faith in his ability and by the very fast response of several of his team-mates, who were clearly alert to the danger that their inexperienced colleague might be swamped by emotion and self-doubt.
To his great credit, Garcia got back to work, contributed well and was warmly applauded when substituted in the second half.
"He can make some mistakes, but learn quick, and try to do the process always looking forward," said Emery. "[He is] as well being very demanding himself every day... his attitude is fantastic, this is the most important of course."
Wherever Garcia's career takes him, he will doubtless remember this night and that moment. It must have been deeply painful, but there is good reason to think this promising young player - the least heralded and therefore perhaps most interesting of Villa's recent signings - will be stronger for having experienced it.
The hardest league in the world can also be the greatest place to learn.
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