UEFA did not allow him to play because his incorporation with Barça came after the last winter window, an odyssey that began in Valdepeñas, which did not materialize in Russia and which ended at the Palau Blaugrana. A story to forget. But to Juan José Camacho, Catela, (Cádiz; 29 years old) had a hard time overcoming it because for eight months he could not compete, required by Barça to train like never before to get into physical shape, punished mentally for inactivity. “I arrived very happy to sign with the best team, but as the weeks went by my smile faded. I couldn’t take it anymore. I have never been much for training and psychologically it killed me,” the Barça winger recalls sincerely. Until at the beginning of this year the veto was lifted. And Catela, finally relaxed, ignoring his everlasting weight problems, let herself go. Coach Jesús Velasco, fed up because the player turned a deaf ear to four warnings that he should enter the peso, gave him a choice: either make it public or take money from the payroll because the internal regulations indicate that they have to be in one peso. “Make it public,” the player conceded. “Catela is brutally, enormously overweight. He is not able to maintain a high pace for many minutes. As a player he is outstanding, but he has physical problems,” the coach announced. That ended up being done clickfor finding the best version of the player who will lead Barça in the Champions League Final Four in Armenia, now in the semifinals against Sporting de Portugal (this Friday, at 7:00 p.m., on Dazn).
“His statement did not affect me,” says Catela, who also did not pay attention to the insults from Gordo and Burger King that they gave him from the stands of the pavilions; “But it did hurt my girlfriend Irene – with whom they have a daughter, also Irene – who asked me to leave. Seeing her like that bothered me and encouraged me to get well.” He began to change fast food for salads, “forced, because it is not my way of life,” he notes with amusement. Although he admits: “If I don’t do it strictly I gain more weight than the rest.” And he started playing as he knows how. “People thought it was because he had lost weight, but I have always played a little passadete. The thing is that I lacked rhythm and to earn the respect of the Barça players because here, either you achieve it or they throw you away,” he admits.
For Catela, the ball came from her cradle because her father was a center back for Cádiz B. “Since I was three years old I have grown up with the ball, playing in the street, also on the court we had next to our house in the Loreto neighborhood.” , account. It was his passion, to the point that his mother threatened to take away football if he didn’t study. “But school was pretty bad for me,” he concedes, stupid. And he always got his way, at first in the Cádiz youth academy. At the age of 15 he made the jump to futsal because they offered him money to play for Virgili in Cádiz. Half a year later he was already in the Second Division Jerez and in 2013, just a year later, he reached the First Division with Zaragoza. His explosion was unstoppable, chosen as the second best young player in the world in 2014. But the night, the food and, above all, his age (he was just over 16) took their toll on him. “Something’s wrong,” he admits. But his ankle also hurt and the club insisted that it was nothing, that he should continue standing. Fed up, he had an MRI and it was revealed that he had a torn ligament. It was the beginning of the end with Zaragoza and the pass to reach Lobelle in Santiago, where he crossed paths with coach Santi Valladares.
“The coach gave me a lot of trouble because I arrived terribly. But we had a great relationship, so much so that his son is my daughter’s godfather, and he helped me understand sacrifice, professionalism, nutrition, life,” explains Catela, who shone again to make it to the Spanish team. . After three years and not signing for Pozo because he changed coaches at the last minute, he ended up at Palma, even though he knew that the game model did not fit with his street football, which was more technical than tactical. A family problem, the lack of confidence from the bench and his lack of desire made it last two years, until the offer from Valdepeñas arrived, where he showed that in shape and with stripes he was made for the elite. That’s why he called Inter and Barça, which, however, didn’t give him much more money than his club. The same did not happen with the Russian Dinamo Samara, who paid 100,000 euros to release him. But he didn’t even travel.
After obtaining the passports, after several days of silence from Russia and a tweet that alerted him that the club’s president had been placed in preventive detention, they confirmed that the entity had disappeared. And Catela, in the middle of January, was left in limbo, worried because he did not have a team. Barça, attentive, signed him five days later, although they knew that they would not be able to count on him until the next season. “The club behaved very well because they paid me during those months,” says the winger. Then came the torture and insults from the stands, as well as Velasco’s public slap on the wrist. “It didn’t bother me,” he insists; “the other way around. I am so. Now, if we win a difficult game, I tell the locker room that I will eat a hamburger and I will eat it in front of everyone.” But he doesn’t lose too much weight, a struggle reminiscent of that of his idol Ronaldo the Phenomenon. “El Gordo,” clarifies Catela, ready to play in the Final Four. It will be for kilos of football.
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