For My Family

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There was never a crazier football fan than my grandfather, I swear. 

I know everybody reading this in Spain will roll their eyes and say, “No, no, no, my uncle is the craziest.” But I am telling you, if you had the chance to meet my grandfather, you would understand. 

He ran Tasca Fernando, the greatest Barça penya in the Canary Islands. It was an old-school tapas restaurant with the wooden ceiling, the wooden chairs, wooden bar, wooden everything. Pictures of our family on the walls (our real family and the Barça players, of course). 

I grew up running between the tables. My grandmother couldn’t stand me and my brother playing the World Cup final while she was trying to bring people their food, so she would always send us down to the “VIP Room.” It was like a little basement under the restaurant where they kept the wine and the crates. I spent a lot of my childhood down there, kicking a ball against the wall. I was actually 7 years old when we won the World Cup in South Africa. That’s the perfect age to become obsessed, no? Before I could tie my shoes, my dreams were set. 

1. Win the World Cup with Spain
2. Win the Champions League with Barcelona

Easy. 

We were closer to the Sahara than we were to the Camp Nou, but supporting another club was impossible. My grandfather made sure of that. If you brought up Real Madrid around him, he would tell you, “No, I will die without ever setting foot in that city.” 

It was not a joke. One weekend, he made a trip with his buddies to see Barça play at the Camp Nou. On the way back, they had a quick layover in Madrid. When the plane landed, everybody got their bags and got off. Except my grandfather. He just sat there in his seat, not moving. 

After 10 minutes, the flight attendant came over and told him, “Sir, are you OK? You have to leave the plane now.” 

He said, “Absolutely not. It’s bad luck for a culé. Take me to Tenerife.” 

She tried to convince him, but he wouldn’t move.

He said, “OK, what if you bring me a wheelchair? Then it doesn’t count, right?”

And guess what? They actually pushed him to the gate. (At least according to the story.) 

He was a real character. He would always go to the Tenerife matches whenever Real Madrid came to town, just to root against them. Of course, he was there on the last day of the season in 1992. Every Barça fan knows what happened in Tenerife in ’92. I was not even born, but I’ve heard the story 100 times from my father. 

It was the last game of the season, and Madrid just had to beat Tenerife to win the title. Barça were second. My grandfather went to the match with his Barcelona tie on and everything. In the first half, Real Madrid went up 2–0. 

It was the most miserable day of his life. 

Some of his buddies from the neighbourhood were Madridistas, and he could see them in the Real Madrid section all the way on the other side of the stadium jumping up and down and celebrating. He knew they were going to invade Tasca Fernando afterwards. He would never hear the end of it.

Then a miracle happened. 

2–1. 

OK. Vamos.

2–2.

Oh my God. Vamos, vamos, vamos!!!

3–2 to Tenerife!!!!

My family says that when the whistle blew, my 60-year-old grandfather got up out of his seat and sprinted all the way across the entire stadium to find his buddies. I don’t think he had run like that in 30 years. 

It was one the greatest days of his life. 

He passed away when I was very young, way before he could see what I became. But we still have the stories. We still have his Barça tie, and his restaurant. And the most important thing he passed down to us was his passion for football. As a family, we really live and breathe it. 

It’s interesting, because in the Canary Islands, we are very laid back in everything else we do. The Canarian player has a certain rhythm on the pitch. We have a way of having fun and not feeling the pressure. We do whatever comes to our mind. I think that’s why so many creative players come from here. 

I remember my father used to take me to training early in the morning after working in the restaurant all night. And he’d always have to stop at the gas station for his coffee on the way. 

I was always freaking out.

“Dad, we’re going to be late. We can’t stop today.” 

And he’d say, in his Canarian way…. 

“Relax, the good players are always late.” 

“I’m not Ronaldinho! The coach is going to be mad.”

“We’re fine. Chill.”

He has a great perspective on life. He was a really good keeper when he was young, but he had to give up his dream when my grandfather passed away so that he could run the restaurant. My dad and my uncle were the only servers, until my brother got old enough and they recruited him. 

They actually never made me work. They saw something special in me, and I was always allowed to go outside and play football after school.

Except one day! One famous day! 

I think I was 13 years old. There was a town festival, and my uncle is actually a stand-up comedian. To me, he’s Pepe. But to the audience, he transforms into Don José. I can’t even give you a joke, because it’s all Canarian humor, and unless you’re from my island, it wouldn’t land. But he had to go do a show during the festival, and so my dad called me in to lend a hand when things got busy. 

I said, “Sure, no problem. How hard could it be? I’m a footballer.”

Well…. Running with a ball is very different from standing behind the bar.

Oh my God. 

I was behind the bar, filling drinks. That was my job. My dad would come running over, and he would yell the orders to me.

“OK, give me 2 Cokes, a Fanta, and 3 beers.”

2 Cokes, a Fanta….

Before I could get the Cokes in the glasses with the ice and the straws, he would be coming back. 

“OK, give me 2 glasses of wine, a Fanta, and 3 Cokes. Hurry.” 

My head was spinning. My legs were aching. 

I said, “Dad, when is the break?”

He said, “Break? What break? This isn’t football.”

At the end of the night, I was so sore. 

My dad said, “So how did you like it?”

I said, “Honestly? I have so much respect for you and Pepe. I am broken.”

My career at Tasca Fernando was over after one night, thank God. I put everything into football. A few months later, I was playing for my local team when my father started getting some phone calls from bigger clubs. It started out with Deportivo, and then eventually Real Madrid called to see if I wanted to come try out for their academy. My family didn’t know how to handle it, because we were normal people. We didn’t have experience with agents or anything like that. I remember a few friends were asking me, “Real Madrid? Are you really going to go? That’s crazy.” 

I was just playing in the park with them, you know? It didn’t seem real.

I said, “Of course. I have to try.” 

A few people from the neighbourhood actually called Barcelona to see if they were interested in me. But the truth is, I was not on their radar at the time. 

I remember some people joking, “If your grandpa was alive…….. Oh my God.” 

My dad took me to Madrid, and when I arrived at the academy, all the other kids were already settled in the residence, and they were in classes all morning. I was kind of on my own at the hotel all day with nothing to do but stare at my phone until training. It wasn’t great for my mentality. 

After a week, they sent me home. It was just not meant to be. 

To be honest, it was humbling. It’s not nice to go back home and see your friends and everyone knows that you didn’t make it. But I’ll never forget that everybody back home was so supportive. And the best part is that everybody is a comedian in my town. They were all kind of laughing about it. 

“Don’t worry, your grandfather was never going to let this happen. He was up there somewhere talking to the Big Guy. God made it snow in Madrid that day!” 

I could never have guessed it at the time, but everything happened for a reason. I was still just a kid, you know? I needed the time to mature. I ended up joining the Las Palmas academy closer to home, and even that was a bit crazy. I was 15 or 16 years old, living on my own for the first time. I remember going to the grocery store with my teammates, and we’d come out with everything but real food. We were lucky if we got home and there was one plain chicken breast in the bag. 

Then we’d go to fry it in the pan (watching how to do it on YouTube).

“Pedri, we forgot the oil.” 

“The oil?”

“Yeah, we need to cook it in oil! Didn’t you grow up in a restaurant???”

I’d be calling up my mom….

“Mom, how do you cook a chicken with no oil?”

We didn’t even have any salt. It was ridiculous. But that’s how you learn to grow up. 

All we did was go to training and play FIFA. I’ll never forget when I made the first team and I got my first FUT card. I was a 72 overall, and everybody was laughing at the picture they used. I looked like I was 10 years old. But it was the greatest day of my life.

I remember my friends back home asking, “Bro, when you play FIFA, do you use yourself?” 

I said, “No, I’m too bad! I stay on the bench. I sub myself in for like five minutes at the end.” 

After one year at Las Palmas, my dad started getting phone calls. Him and my mom kept it from me until they basically had to tell me. They were trying to protect me. 

I remember one day my dad called me and said, “A few teams are interested in you. You have to make a decision whether you want to leave or stay.”

I said, “OK … tell me the teams.” 

“Well, do you want to make this quick? Because I think when I tell you the one name, you won’t want to hear the rest.” 

“Tell me.” 

“Barça.”

“What?”

“Barça. Really.”

“OK, that’s it. Let’s go.” 

Obviously, for my whole family, it was tears and tears. My three best friends were the first ones I told. Fran, Rubén, and Dani. They reacted as only Canarians can react. 

Dani would tell me, “But I don’t understand. How can Barça call you? You’re not that good. I play with you every day! You’re good. But come on! You’re going to play with Busquets???!!! I guess you will be a substitute? This is crazy, bro.”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’ll send me back out on loan.” 

“Man, you have to make it. We can live together and it will be like Entourage. I want to be Johnny Drama.” 

“You are definitely Turtle, bro.” 

I remember my brother flew to Barcelona with me, and we had to take a taxi to training because neither of us had a license. It was COVID times, so you had to show up already dressed. So I’m in the back of a normal taxi in my full Barça training kit, driving up to the Joan Gamper. 

We got out and I went up to the security booth like, “Hola, my name is Pedri. I’m here for training.”

The guard waved me through, and I had no idea where to go. When I opened the door to the players’ area, guess who is the first person that I saw? Literally, the first person. 

It’s Leo. 

He’s standing in front of me, for real.

I was basically speechless. I tried to introduce myself. I don’t know what I said. 

He just smiled and told me to relax and come into the dressing room. 

It’s funny because I came in at the same time as Trincão, and for the first few days, we used to just stay in the gym after training, because we were too embarrassed to go into the dressing room with all these legends — Busquets, Piqué, Jordi, Leo. We just stood around pretending that we were stretching forever. I’ve never been more flexible. Just doing crunches, re-tying our shoes, sitting there talking about what happened in training that day, kind of in awe that we got to be there. 

“Man, Busi never loses the ball. It’s crazy.”

Finally, Leo walked by one day, and he must have figured out what was going on. 

He said, “Hey, what are you guys doing in here? Come in and chill with us.” 

Leo brought us into the dressing room and showed us where to sit. We were like two puppies. 

“Here? I can sit here?” 

I’ll forever be grateful to him for that. Leo and Jordi broke the ice and made us so comfortable. But I was not sure if they were going to let me stay or send me back on loan. To be honest, at training, I felt completely at home. In the possession drills, the ball was moving at lightning speed. But the thing is, when you are playing with geniuses, the ball is always right at your feet, with the perfect pace. They make everything easier. 

I felt like I was doing really well, but it’s Barça. You look at the squad, and you think, “Can I really fit?”

Then, one day, Koeman called me into his office. He told me that I was staying, and that I could play on the wing or in midfield. I tried to be so stoic and professional. I shook his hand, and then I remember I turned around and I walked out of his office with the biggest smile on my face. 

I went back to my apartment and called my parents, and we had a good cry. 

It’s not just any big club for us. It’s Barça. It’s in our family’s blood. 

My dad reminded me of the promise that I made him when I was a kid. You see, I was always a little bit absentminded. When we went to training, I would always forget my boots or my shin guards or something at home. I was already dreaming about the game. Sometimes he’d have to drive all the way back to the house to get something. So he used to joke with me, “Hey, you have to make it as a footballer so I can be your personal assistant. I’ll follow you around making sure you have your socks. Then I won’t have to wait tables anymore, and we can fly around the world together.”

That was our deal. 

When I knew that I was staying I said, “Dad, you’re going to have to make sure I remember my Barça socks, eh? Can’t forget them in the Champions League.” 

For us, every day since then has been incredible. 

When I was just a little kid in the “VIP Room,” I used to pretend I was scoring at the Camp Nou. Now I get to do it in real life. 

You know what’s cool? When you’re a kid, you build an image in your head of what it’s going to be like, with the wall of people going up, up, up to the heavens. In your imagination, the crowd doesn’t really have a face, you know? It’s just like a blur. But in real life, when you score and you start running to the corner flag, you can actually look into the stands and see the expressions of the culés — the real people, jumping up and down, and you see how much it means to them. 

It’s like I can see my own family staring back at me. The “crazy ones.”

The first few times I scored after COVID, when the crowds came back, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. When I was at Las Palmas, my family was always making fun of me for sticking my tongue out when I scored. I didn’t even know I was doing it. It was subconscious. So I thought, “OK, you can’t stick your tongue out at the Camp Nou. Grandpa would kill you.” 

So I would just run to the corner flag with my arms out. I didn’t know what to do. You know when you score in FIFA and you can do a celebration but you don’t know what to pick? That was me. When I got to the corner flag, all I was thinking was, “Come on, somebody come and hug me so I don’t look ridiculous, because I don’t know what else to do!”

When I got back home on a break, I was sitting around with my family, and they said (as only Canarians can say it), “You really need a better celebration. You look ridiculous.” 

I said, “What can I do with my hands? I never know what to do.”

That’s when the pictures on the walls gave us our inspiration. At Tasca Fernando, there’s all these old pictures on the front wall. My mom in the kitchen in her chef’s apron, making the best solomillo. My uncle doing stand-up, holding the mic. My dad grinning from ear to ear, lifting the Champions League trophy. My grandpa is there smiling, in his suit with the Barça tie, and he’s wearing the coolest glasses you’ve ever seen — tinted, old-school, like a movie star. So when you see me score, it’s not binoculars. I’m actually putting on my grandpa’s glasses. 

Right away, I dedicated the celebration to my father, for everything he has done for me. It’s also my way of honoring the whole family.

It’s me saying to them, “Hey, can you believe how far we have come?”

You know…. My dad always says that if my grandfather was around to see me playing for Barça, he’d probably have a heart attack. 

“Just imagine. You’d have him here living with you. He’d be asking about every single player. How is Lamine? How is Frenkie? You would never get rid of him!”

Man, I wish…… I wish……..

I think it would have been beyond his wildest dreams to think that his grandson would one day be a World Cup winner. 

It’s funny, as much as we joke around in our family about this club or that club, whenever we come together as a national team, it is something so special. In Spain, football makes us absolutely crazy. It really does. But it also brings us together. You could see it all summer, the way the team and the country were united. 

Every player did whatever was asked of them in order for us to win, and we showed the world the character of Spanish football. 

It feels surreal to say it, but we are the world champions. 

To be able to bring my father on the pitch after the final and take a penalty with him in goal…. No, it’s not even something that I can put into words. 

He sacrificed his dream to keep the family business alive. He worked so hard so that I could go outside and just be a kid, playing football all day, being free. 

Now he can say, “My son won the World Cup.” 

What else can give you this feeling, except football? 

I will never forget the parade in Madrid, seeing the country stand together in a sea of red….. 2 million people, all united, having the greatest day of their lives. 

It’s an emotion that you cannot buy with money.

I swear, even my grandpa would have broken his rule and come to Madrid to party with us that day. 

He’s probably up there in heaven right now, talking about football all day with his buddies. A bunch of old guys sitting around with glasses of wine…. 

“Hey, do you think we can do it again in four years?”

“We have the best midfield in the world!”

“Who is going to stop us?”

Grandpa, thank you for putting this love of football in my blood. You may not be here, but you are still part of my entourage.