History buff Almunia can't wait to return to the battlefields of Europe

"Wherever you go in the Champions League, there are connections with World War Two," said the Arsenal goalkeeper. "I remember us being in Munich a few years ago. The place where we were staying seemed quite old and I asked about its history. That hotel turned out to have been a base for American officers when they occupied Germany.

"And Kiev? Occupying Kiev was one of the strongest points of the war for the Germans. That was before they headed for Stalingrad and Moscow and the winter came in around them; they ran out of petrol and food, they had no winter clothes, and they were forced to retreat."

It is a subject he talks about with enthusiasm and Almunia's interest in the Second World War also explains why he was at the Phoenix Cinema in East Finchley on Sunday to see the newly-released The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, based on John Boyne's best-selling novel of the same name.

The movie is an emotive elegy on childhood, friendship and the Holocaust. Watching it wasn't the obvious way to relax the day after helping Arsenal win 4-0 at Blackburn. Almunia, however, is Arsenal's representative for the Premier League's Reading Stars initiative and he was there to take part in a question-and-answer session with the audience.

The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas turned out to be a book very close to his heart.

"Last September, I went to Normandy with my wife, Ana, to visit the D-Day beaches," he said. "She'd bought the book the week before; it's famous in Spain, too. While I drove, Ana read. It's very, very good."

That visit to the Omaha beach, and Almunia's fascination with World War Two in particular, was first inspired by seeing Spielberg's D-Day epic, Saving Private Ryan.

But his interest in wartime history should not come as a surprise. He grew up in Pamplona in a family with military connections; his brother was a serving soldier with the Spanish army and a UN peacekeeper in Kosovo. When he came to England in 2004, Almunia's objective was to secure a place in Arsenal's first team at the expense of Jens Lehmann. At the same time, though, life in a new country served to deepen the sense of curiosity he had brought with him from Spain.

"I think you get a feeling here about what happened during the War," he said. "There is a stronger sense of that history. A respect for it, too.

"When I meet football fans, older ones, I'll try to talk to them, to ask them about the War. They're always very open to talking about their experiences. Their history is part of the culture in England."

Tonight, in Kiev, there will be another kind of history altogether on Almunia's mind. He is one of a handful of the squad who were involved in Paris two years ago, when Arsenal, in their first Champions League Final, lost out to a Henrik Larsson-inspired Barcelona. Indeed, Almunia was rather more involved than expected after Lehmann's early red card.

Now a new Champions League campaign opens on the Eastern Front. "Can we get to the final, again? I'm sure we can," said Almunia. "I have confidence in this team. These players have already been to difficult places in Europe and won. Each year we need to be a little more aggressive in our game, a little tougher. We don't have to be nice people out on the pitch."

Reading Stars is an educational project in partnership with the Football Foundation, the National Literacy Trust, the Premier League and the Arts Council England, which uses the motivational power of football to encourage families to read together.