personal player football: messi and villa

Saturday, April 2, 2011

messi and villa

Villa can’t speak English – and nor can Messi for that matter – but he had an English girl, Natalie, on hand, if he wanted to be converse in The Queen’s.

I’d not seen Natalie for five years. She used to work at Levante in Valencia and fixed me an interview with Levante legend Antonio Calpe when FourFourTwo did the More Than A Game derby feature on Valencia v Levante.

Calpe remains one of the best people I’ve ever interviewed. He was a big star at Levante in the 60s and played at Real Madrid for six years. He remained popular in Levante circles – probably their best ever player - but had never been interviewed by a foreign journalist when I asked him.

So he put a suit on and his wife baked some cakes to give to me. He was lovely man. I could have listened to him all day, though I’m sure Natalie had better things to do. His love of Levante was brilliant, and the way he slated Valencia, hilarious.