Ansu Fati, the wonder boy of Barcelona who made history for Spain and defies the records of Lionel Messi

09/06/2020 - 9:54

• Clarín.com

• sports

Ansu Fati

met his father at the age of 7.

Far from where she was born, close to her new world.

Bori had long since left Guinea Bissau in search of work, first in Portugal and then in Spain.

He was employed by the railroad, worked on the construction of the AVE line between Córdoba and Malaga and settled in Herrera, an Andalusian town of just over 5,000 inhabitants.

When the construction of the railway line was finished, Bori started looking for a job in whatever form: bricklayer, porter, garbage collector.

When he saw his son for the first time, he was already the driver of the mayor of Marinaleda, the communist Juan Manuel Sánchez Gordillo, who paid the tickets for Anssumane to arrive in Spain.

"Let him share what he wins,"

Sánchez Gordillo joked once that boy became a professional footballer.

“I didn't even know that I had played in Guinea,” admits Ansu Fati's father.

Ansu Fati 🤩

🔝 G⚽ALS in @FCBmasia pic.twitter.com/LtXrOg1TRM

- FC Barcelona (@FCBarcelona_es) August 26, 2019

Bori had left Guinea in 1998 when his wife, María de Lourdes Vieira, became pregnant with Braima, the older brother of the Barcelona player.

From there, the contact was maintained by the money that Bori sent and by some sporadic visits.

In one of them, Maria became pregnant again.

“I assumed he had rallied in the street, but nothing more.

He told me he wanted to play, to take him to the field, but when I managed to regroup the family, I had many things to do and I didn't have time.

One day I come home from work and I meet neighbors and children at the door of my house.

'Do you know what you have here?

You have to see it.

This kid has to play at the club, 'they tell me.

And since then it has not stopped, "said Bori in an interview with the

.

According to the data released in 2018, Guinea Bissau has a GDP per capita of 659 euros.

It is ranked 176th out of 196 countries.

The Human Development Index prepared by the United Nations to measure the progress of a nation, indicates that the inhabitants of Guinea Bissau (it is one of the smallest countries in the world, with less than two million inhabitants) are among those with the worst quality of life. life they have on the planet.

There,

.

Everything happened at the speed with which he plays.

"

.

The first time we saw him, he appeared barefoot.

And it was spectacular, we were astonished, we did not know where it had come from, but it was clear that he knew how to play: nobody took the ball from him ”, coincide José Luis Pérez Mena and Jordi Figueroa, the men who discovered Ansu Fati in Herrera.

From there he went to Sevilla.

And from Seville to decide between Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Ansu Fati, in 2013, in one of his first matches at La Masía.

(Photo: Mundo Deportivo).

At just 9 years old, the boy who was born in a poor town in Africa, who had arrived in Europe thanks to a communist mayor who paid for the tickets so that his employee could meet his son, the same boy who had fun playing with teenagers in the youth of Sevilla, now he had to travel again.

And enter La Masía.

“Madrid offered me better conditions, money, everything, but I chose Barsa and La Masía because it gave me more security.

I didn't want the baby to go out there every day and get lost, ”Bori recalls.

In an interview with the newspaper

, he remembers that when Ansu went up to Juvenil B, he requested a license from the public waste collection company where he started to work after ceasing to be Sánchez Gordillo's driver.

Before the final jump, two new obstacles would arrive for the footballer.

In mid-2014 he spent months without playing due to a FIFA sanction against Barcelona that prevented the club from signing community players under 16 years of age and non-EU players under 18. And at the end of 2015 the tibia and fibula were broken. right leg.

In 2019 the explosion would come.

First contract with

.

Ansu Fati celebrates his goal with Messi;

Rodrigo, Leo's brother is part of the group that represents the youth born in Ginea Bissau.

AFP photo

In August he became

and throughout LaLiga at 16 years and 304 days.

And in December he added that item also in the Champions League by scoring a goal against Inter at 17 years and 40 days.

He was the second youngest player to make his debut in Barcelona, ​​at 16 years and 298 days and only surpassed by Vicente Martínez, who did so at 16 years, 9 months and 7 days.

And he

also

: he debuted on September 3 at the start of the League of Nations in Europe with 17 years and 308 days.

The most precocious was Ángel Zubieta who in 1936 and in Prague he wore the Red shirt at 17 years and 283 days.

There are more numbers for Ansu Fati

: he is the youngest player to achieve an assist and a goal in the same game;

the youngest to score a double, the youngest to make his debut for Barcelona in the Champions League, the youngest to make his debut and also to score at the Camp Nou ...

Ansu Fati climbs to celebrate the agonizing draw of Spain against Germany in the debut of the League of Nations in Europe.

Photo: EFE

And now he has broken a new mark, no less than in the National Team.

In the 45 minutes he played against Germany (1-1) he almost did it twice but the plays that ended in a goal were well annulled.

This Sunday against Ukraine he did not miss his new opportunity.

With his goal, the third of the national team in the clash, he scored with 17 years and 311 days of age.

, of course.

Like the Barcelona striker, who achieved Spanish nationality in 2018, the previous record holder, 

.

He came to the world on June 22, 1906 in Los Leones, a town in the south of Córdoba, Argentina.

The son of Basque parents, they returned together to Irún, where Juan grew up, on the border with France.

They called him "the full-length battering ram."

In 1925 and against Switzerland he became the youngest player to score a goal with the Spain team shirt.

Of yapa, he did not make one;

made three.

Errazquin was 18 years and 344 days old.

She died six years after that feat.

Until today no one had managed to improve their record.

But Ansu Fati arrived and wrote another page of a story that promises many joys.

MFV