Real debut with Mou, diabetes and his footballer brother: that’s who Nacho is, target for Inter

TO Milan are already linked to some of the best memories of his life, lived in the same evening. On 28 May seven years ago, while preparing for the Champions League final, Maria gave birth to the couple’s second child. The first girl was born the year before, always in the same period, and took her mother’s name. The boy instead takes that of his father, immediately becomes Nachito.

The immeasurable joy increases dramatically a few hours later, when Real Madrid lift the cup from the big ears by beating Atletico Madrid at the San Siro after penalties. Nacho doesn’t take the field, but Zidane has always had great consideration for him. On the other hand, he is someone who has whiteness in his blood. He has never had another team, except as a child, when he started playing at Colegio San Gabriel and Adc Alcalà, a club in his hometown. Real became aware of a very interesting eleven-year-old central defender and decided to sign him together with his brother Alex, two years his junior. They shared the path together in the youth teams and in Castilla, it was Mourinho who made him debut with the first team at the age of 21, at the Mestalla in Valencia. At one point he feels the pains of cramps, the coach asks him if he’s able to continue, but he doesn’t even look at him. It’s not every day he gets to wear such a glorious shirt, the colors he proudly wears as a teenager waiting for a moment like this.

And to say that he really shouldn’t have played football. He believed it for a few days. After his first season at Real, twelve-year-old Nacho discovers after a medical examination that he has diabetes. His mother gets suspicious, because she pees too much and drank a lot of water. “The doctor who visited me told me my career was over.” Pretty much finished before it even started. However, you are not an endocrinologist and you need specialist advice. She confronts Dr. Ramirez, who is still his doctor. “I’m very fond of him. For him there was no reason why I should stop playing and I continued to play because physical exercise is very important. That Monday my life started again.”

Now that he’s 33 and has been living with the disease for twenty, he’s practically got used to it. “It’s a bit like having a teammate next to you. It makes you more responsible because you always have to carry the necessary equipment with you, it requires three times more care than normal people, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. There are foods to which I have to pay more attention, but I can eat everything. Let’s say it’s under control”.

Defender yes, but with a license to offend, in a never trivial way. Like the goal from the edge against Leonesa, voted the most beautiful in La Liga in the 2015-16 season. He has excellent coordination in volleying, over time he has been able to adapt to all roles in the back department. He has a very rich palmares, where the five Champions Leagues stand out, and this too makes him a name to follow carefully since he will soon be released. Inter have identified him as a possible replacement for the departing Skriniar, who has made an agreement with PSG in recent months. Whatever his future will be, Nacho in any case wants to leave something concrete, which can remain even after he retires. For this reason, in 2015 he founded the Naf Academy with his brother, an academy precisely for the training of very young athletes, who can grow not only on a sporting level but also on a human level, through an educational path for those who could one day become a professional. Or even one with more than three hundred Real Madrid appearances.