Catalán news daily Sport presented a detailed look at FC Barcelona’s newest addition, forward and Spanish international David Villa (28). According to Sport, the history of David Villa began to be written in the neighborhood of Viviendas Protegidas of Tuilla. On those streets, the son of one of the mining families that reside in this zone ran about, playing football with the other children, and he quickly stood above the rest, despite his short stature. Barça’s newest crack did not have anything easy as he tried to exploit his innate qualities. Neither his physical size nor an accident that he had when he was 4 years old helped him, but through his natural form, he overcame the adversities with the same character that has led him to become part of the best team in the world.

David has always been el Guaje and he explains it thus: “In the Asturian* dialect, Bable, it means ‘child.’ They called me that above all for two reasons. On one hand, they tend to call kids that, and I was especially small. I always played with older kids, and, since I was the smallest in the junior divisions, they fondly called me that. On the other hand, it just happens that ‘Guaje’ was also the miner’s assistant, and in my family, which was dedicated to mining, well, the name had even more meaning.” The nickname has accompanied him throughout his career, although he points out that “at home they call me ‘David’… Although they are the only ones who do so.”

 His early childhood was marked by the admiration he felt towards his father, Mel, a miner who risked his health everyday to feed his family. Villa remembers about his father that “thanks to God, he retired when I was eleven” and before that, he could not weigh the inherent risks because “like it or not, when you are the breadwinner you have other worries and live by a different way,” although he keeps in mind how Mel “just before he left [mining], he had a serious incident in the mine.” They told David that he “had problems leaving, but thanks to God we didn’t suffer through it, because we were sleeping, and when we found out about the fire, he had already gotten out.”

The accident did not precipitate his retirement, since it “was already planned because of how old he already was, for the years he had spent working, and for health reasons.” Villa values even more as the years have passed his father’s merits, although he got the idea out of his head of following in his footsteps and fighting daily in the darkness of the mine. “When I was little, I wanted to be like my father. He was my idol, but with the passage of the years I saw how difficult it was to be a miner and to do the work they had to perform. Because of this, I changed my mind and chose to play football.”

El Guaje exchanged the mine for a soccer ball, but his career could have been cut short at age four. “I barely remember it. My parents have told me about it. I was four years old, and a child fell on top of me at school. I broke the upper part of my femur,” he recounts. The fracture caused a great deal of worry among the doctors that treated him because “at that moment they worried that I would be lame. I followed a treatment that had me in a cast for six months and going to the hospital. Luckily, it paid off.” Villa has not resented this incident, and he feels even more sure since the doctors told his father that “if the fracture healed well, which happened, the leg would not break there again.”

The football itch started to run through his veins, and as soon as he had recovered, he was back to kicking the ball. El Guaje worked on his condition, and his feather decided that he was ready to enter into the youth ranks of Real Ovieda. “I tried out with them, but they ‘threw me out with the little fish.’ They didn’t want me to play there. I don’t remember why … So I signed with Langreo and I was happy that Oviedo rejected me. In Langreo I spent some very good years, made great friends, and later, I was able to have great experiences with Sporting,” he explained. At the heart of his family, the negativity of the azulón club felt very bad, given that “my father was of Oviedo and he would take me to their field when I was little. When I went to Langreo, it changed my preferences and converted me into a sportinguista until death.”

In his stage as a rojiblanco, he had two idols, Quini and Luis Enrique. The first stands out because “he taught me the values that a player should have if he is going to do well in the profession.” While about Luis Enrique, Villa comments, “He was an enormous reference for me. I tried to imitate him and learn all I could. He was a reference for all my life.” Barça also owes a lot to Quini for having insisted with David a lot that he should choose the blaugrana club. “He told me that these past few summers. He is convinced that Barça’s football suits me and that I’ll be successful.” He has also transmitted the barcelonismo that he carries inside: “When he speaks of Barça, you can see in his eyes the years he spent here and how glad he was to be here.”

Barcelona will be his new city, although he is already familiar with it, owing to “when I was at Zaragoza, I came here a lot. The center is very pretty. I liked to go with my wife to the shops along Diagonal Avenue and the Paseo de Gracia.” Villa appreciates a lot that in Barcelona you can enjoy the Mediterranean. “A football player should have other priorities; although, it is true that with the exception of the two years I was with Zaragoza, I always lived thinking about the beach.”

In Catalunya, he considers David Piri, with whom he played with while at Zaragoza, among his best friends. “He is the godfather of one of my daughters and our two families are very happy together. They will help me a lot in adjusting,” he noted. About Piri, Villa also underlines his quality as a coach: “he rose up to Sabadell, he likes the work a lot, and he gets along very well with the group.”

Putting football aside, Villa spends his free time “with my wife and my daughters, and if I had to choose another sport, it would be paddle.” Another passion is music, and he confirms that “I live completely with it, in the car, in [moments of ] concentration… It motivates me and disconnects me. A group? I like the latest from Fila or, right now, Monolo García.”

*Asturias is one of the autonomous communities in the north of Spain, just east of Galicia and along the coast of the Cantabrian Sea. Like many of the autonomous communities, such as Barcelona, Asturians speak a regional language, called Bable, in addition to Castilian Spanish, which is the official language in Spain.