Sporting striker Eric Ramírez, this Sunday against Zaragoza at El Molinón.
Of all the possible ways to brand new fatherhood, the one that has fallen to Eric Ramírez (Barinas, Venezuela; 23 years old), a new striker for Sporting de Gijón, is one of the most unique.
A mixture of happiness and anguish that only he, if anything, could explain.
3,500 kilometers away and with his daughter Camila coming into the world in a clinic in Kiev while the bombs of the Russian army fell on the city.
“The mother and the girl are fine, calm, in the basement of the hospital, which is quite safe as far as it goes.
Three days ago the explosions were heard, but now everything is calm, they tell me.
Hopefully they reach an agreement and stop all this.
I am happy that my daughter was born without problems, although seeing her on a screen and not being able to hug her is quite sad”, he comments on the other end of the phone from the intestines of El Molinón, after playing the last 20 minutes of the 1-2 defeat against Zaragoza in 96. He came out in 73, tried with two shots, charged with a yellow card for protesting and went home to see if he would see his girl again through his mobile.
"Before the meeting I managed to talk to my wife and I saw Camila awake," he says with a serious voice.
Solving the birth with a happy ending, now the only thing that matters to her is getting both of them out of the Ukraine.
“I am trying to process his departure to any nearby country as quickly as possible.
The most viable option seems to be to go to Poland by car because by plane, it is impossible and, from there, travel to Spain or Venezuela.
The key is to leave Ukraine behind.
I would like her to be home already and for my mother to see the girl.
I know that soon I will have vacations and, if it is not here [in Spain], I will have the opportunity to be with her, ”says Eric Ramírez, an area striker, with pink-dyed hair who does not stop thanking everything the support of his new club, which he joined a month ago on loan from Dynamo Kiev until the end of the season.
“I have received a lot of help from Sporting, from my national team and from the federation.
With so many people behind
This Venezuelan, eight times international with his national team, signed for Dinamo Kiev last summer after performing at a good level in the modest Dunajska Streda, in Slovakia.
In the Ukrainian capital, however, he only played seven games and scored a goal.
So in the last days of the winter market he looked for a future in Gijón and his wife - Fabiola, also Venezuelan - stayed in the Ukraine.
“My wife is with her mother, who arrived two days before the conflict”
“He didn't come with me because it was impossible, brother.
The belly was very big, he couldn't travel, he couldn't get on a plane.
It became impossible”, he assures.
“While we were in Kiev, there was a lot of talk about a war, but everything remained in words.
We had no idea something like this was going to happen.
Had she known, my wife would never have stayed there.
We wanted a quiet birth, since in my country it is quite complicated, and in the end it ended up going a bit wrong, ”she laments.
In the midst of so many accidents, at least his wife has his mother by his side.
“He arrived just two days before the war started.
She stays in the hospital.
It is impossible to get out of there.
It seems that these days they will open and they will be able to be in the house where we lived, but not at the moment, ”she indicates.
Camila came into the world in an induced labor this Saturday, around noon.
Everything was very fast, so much so that her father was caught asleep.
“I had spent a night quite overwhelmed by the situation and, after training, I lay down to rest.
When I woke up, she had many messages.
Incredible happiness.
The last time he had spoken to Fabiola, two or three hours before, he told me that she had dilated eight centimeters, she was very close to ten.
And the next time we talked, he had already had the girl, ”says the striker.
Camila had weighed almost four kilos.
"The mother is a bit big and there was no way she would come out small," this 1.88 battering ram releases in one of the few spontaneous gestures that he grants.
“You imagine yourself in childbirth, but you played like that.
She will have a father for life.
"He did not come to Spain because he could not travel and we did not believe this would happen"
In addition to the case of this Venezuelan, the war has given Sporting strength.
Against Zaragoza, in José Luis Martí's debut on the bench, his two full-backs were Ukrainian: Bogdan Milovanov (Lugansk, 23 years old) on the right and Vasyl Kravets (Lviv, 24 years old) on the left, a youngster on loan from the Leganés who, as soon as Russia attacked his country, responded by beating his chest.
“I want to go to war and help my people.
But I can't because I don't know how to shoot, how to move, how to reload a gun… but I want to help.
If I could, I would go to the front to defend my territory.
If my country needs everyone to defend itself, I'm leaving.
I'm talking to Sporting and I'm leaving," he exclaimed this Thursday.
At the moment, this Sunday he played the 90 minutes.
What Eric Ramírez aspires to and with his daughter near him, on the shore of the Cantabrian Sea.
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