In the summer of 2000, Paulo Futre received a call from representative Santos Márquez. He had to go to an appointment urgently. He did it and in that meeting he met Florentino Pérez. Elections had been called for Madrid and the only opportunity for the candidate Pérez had a name: Luis Figo. And Futre, “king of Portuguese footballers”, was the key. He first called José Veiga, Figo’s representative, and explained the idea to him. Veiga hung up, but in Futre a light came on and in front of Florentino, who was looking at him, he kept talking to himself until suddenly he turned to him: –Florentino, you can do it for ten million. -Five. -Six. Once obtained, Futre asked permission to call Veiga from another room. He presented the idea to her again, but with four million commission. Veiga thought about it: –Ask for five and call me. Futre waited a few minutes: –I got six. three for you And so he launched the Figo operation, with two dribbles. In ‘El Portugués’, the biography published in his native country, Futre tells more. His role did not stop there. He designed distracting maneuvers with Zidane and was used to convince the player, who refused. There was a penalty clause and the last few days Veiga cried desperately. As a last resort, Figo and Florentino were brought together in Lisbon. The conversation began at one in the morning and at the edge of dawn, Florentino became serious: what do you want to sign? And when everyone expected an amount, Figo replied: “To Sá Pinto”, a Portuguese footballer. Futre was the only one there who understood it. He knew that Figo was afraid to go into that locker room alone, a fear he recognized. When he moved from Sporting Lisbon to Porto at a very young age, he experienced, on a scale, what Figo would experience. In the 1980s, very few footballers from the south of Portugal played in the north. Futre received graffiti in his new city (“We are going to kill you, Moor”) and attacks on his house in Montijo. The most expensive signing Futre had been for Jesús Gil what Figo was for Florentino. Galactic before galactic. After winning the European Cup in 1987, Porto agreed to his transfer to Inter. In these Gil arrives and offers the club and player double with hardly any negotiation. Futre couldn’t believe it and decides to take advantage: I want a house. Done. And a pool. Done. And a Porsche. Done. But Futre doesn’t trust him, and he asks for the car as soon as he arrives in Madrid. They go to the dealership and there is only one, yellow. Gil wins the elections and Futre becomes the second most expensive signing in history. The first was Maradona. Futre was a galactic before the galactic he had come to everything very quickly and at 34 years old he knew what Figo had ahead of him; his performance in the signing sums up his talent on and off the pitch. His football was made of the same skill and rare passion. “I play as if the world is ending and I have to avoid a catastrophe.” Many times he played with anger, against someone; against Gil (“This goal is for you, son of a bitch”) or against Toshack, who showed him the door of Sporting. Futre left school as a child. At 13, he was a mechanic. His formation was Chalana, a Benfica winger that he went to see despite being in the rival youth academy. He imitated him on the ship coming and going to train. On those voyages he was so afraid of storms that he never wanted a yacht. On deck, with a bottle for a ball, he imitated his idol and swinging his arms to avoid falling forged his style. What he wanted to capture was something very specific: Chalana’s ability to deceive with her hip. The total mischief. Jesús Gil y Futre, in the 90 efe Futre was so fast that he arrived before the law. At age 9 he had to fake his identity to participate in the tournament in which he was discovered; the rules prevented him from debuting at the age of 16 when he had been training with the elders for months, and to free him from the military, which would have stopped his career, they made him a custom law. It was President Mario Soares, with Futre recently arrived in Madrid. Each tie of the Champions of 87 was an extension that he won the military, from which he only got rid, years later, when he was able to show that his knee was destroyed. A born player Futre’s career, however, was marked by arriving at the wrong time. His Atlético fell in the overlap between La Quinta and Cruyff’s Barça; he won two King Cups, but Gil destabilized the team for something bigger. When due to economic problems he signed for Benfica, staging the goodbye with a Pimpinela-style discussion with Gil, Benfica sank amid scandals; He then went to the Olimpique de Tapie (fleeing from the Portuguese army) and the same thing happened. He also had no luck in the selection, which he arrived just before the generation of Figo and Rui Costa. When he was 9 years old, he falsified his identity to play a tournament at the World Cup in Mexico. He was 20 years old, full of hope. He decided to take books to the concentration so as not to play cards because the cards reminded him too much of tobacco. Futre was the organizer of the timbas and since he was a child he played until the wee hours. “He was a born player. He knew how to play everything: pure cheat games (‘lerpa’, ‘muffle’, seesaw and poker) or other types (cornela, loba, sueca or king)”. It was not the only sacrifice. He promised not to masturbate throughout the World Cup, although the abstinence did not last. The Portuguese went out one night and hit on Mexicans. Some were wealthy ladies who gave jewels to soccer players (it was not uncommon, Futre was tempted in Madrid by a ‘madam’ who, on behalf of a fan, offered him millions for a single night). As many had a partner, and could not return to Portugal with the jewels, Futre decided to buy them at a good price and resell them later. The World Cup was a disaster, but he made money. At 14 years old, in a tournament in Paris with the national team, he already did something similar. Children had a habit of stealing sportswear in department stores and he managed to trick them all into believing that they had been discovered. He made them return them to his room, as captain he would deliver them, but what he did, “bandit since pequenino”, was keep the loot. Futre, the most lively, was always a costume animal, he knew how to win a habitat that he knew very soon. At the age of 15, he observed the anguish of Sporting veterans, “the silence of fear.” He always came as a pretty boy, between misgivings. In Madrid he knew how to win over his teammates by standing up to Gil. They were stiff, but when ‘El Gordo’ died, Futre carried his coffin. A rogue Being sports director, with Atlético in second, he witnessed an argument in the locker room in which Salva, the striker, demanded “eggs”. Futre lowered his pants and offered them. «Here are mine, the first. Look at them.” Related News Atlético de Madrid 2 – 1 Porto standard No Atlético goes crazy José Miguélez Three goals in extra time take the score from one side to the other in a heart-stopping debut for the rojiblancos. Griezmann scores the final goal In those months, with Atleti intervened and without a euro, he signed his compatriot Dani for free, a misguided adonis whom years before he had tried to straighten out with his advice: «Dani, ‘malandro’ does not deceive ‘malandro ‘. I have never had sex more than four times a week, neither on the eve of games nor two days before. And if I play on Sunday, I smoke twelve cigarettes on Tuesday, ten on Wednesday, eight on Thursday, six on Friday, four on Saturday… I do what I want, but controlled.” Dani ignored him completely, and that Futre, to motivate him, even pointed a gun at him (without bullets). After Marseille, Italy, England, Japan and Madrid again, he returned to Portugal, where they rediscovered his charisma and he is a media star. In Spain he is king of the mattress town. He speaks in «Iberian» , neither from here nor from there, from both; when he wanted to say something strong in Madrid, he said it in Portugal first, and vice versa. If there was an Iberianism, he would be a standard bearer. His ‘malandrices’ are our picaresque, sentimental heritage of Spanish football. Futre, who came to everything before, lives in a premature condition of legend. Now, having buried his mother, he is recovering from a heart attack and abjuring tobacco forty years later. He keeps haggling like on that boat.
