Football gives meaning to your life. I really believe this. But your life, your history, your essence, also gives meaning to your football. I am going to talk about some things that I almost never discuss. I need to tell you a story that shaped everything that I am. It happened before I was even born. We have to go back to , during the Spanish Civil War. My maternal grandfather was from Barcelona, and he fought against the dictator Franco until the bitter end.
At the very end of the war, he was a wanted man, and he only had a few minutes to make an escape before the Nationalist soldiers captured the city. He had to cross the Pyrenees mountains on foot to get to France, and he did not have time to say proper goodbyes. This was the end. Life or death. She was She had to leave behind her family, friends, everything. There were more than , Spanish refugees accepted there. Can you imagine if the French had turned them all away?
But no, they showed compassion, as humanity must always show compassion to those who suffer. My grandparents had arrived with nothing. They had to start their lives over. This is the life of immigrants. You go where you must. You do what you must. So they went. They made a life for themselves. My mother was born there a few years later, and then the family eventually moved to Marseille. This story is in my blood. It shaped me as a human being.
But it only existed in my mind like a dream. There were no photos of their struggle, only stories. There was nothing from that time to touch, to see. Inside these old boxes, there were 4, negatives from the Spanish Civil War that had been missing for more than 60 years. How they had gotten to Mexico, nobody knew. I was very curious, so when they had an exhibition of the photos in New York City, I went with my wife.
Most of the photos were just tiny negatives. Thousands of them. You had to look at them under a magnifying glass. But a few of the photos at the center of the exhibit were huge. Almost three meters tall. The people in the photos were life-sized. It felt as though you could reach out and touch them. It was impossible, no? But there he was, as a young man. So when the exhibit moved to France a few months later, I took my mother to see it. And there he was again, as a young man. Imagine if my grandfather had not made it.
