A footballer playing for a small team in the third tier in Spain put a video on the internet offering to work for any health centre when the country was in a crisis. It was not an empty gesture for the likes, as he immediately started messaging friends, asking them to please let him know if there was any way he could help out, but he actually could help as well. Diego Cervero is a doctor. Even if he doesn't say so himself, he is the greatest football player of all time. The man once said he had two problems: one was his left foot and the other his right foot. Even though he took his team to the first division, he never played in the second division. He was a man with a turning circle of a 10-ton truck. Ask anyone in the northern Spanish city of Oviedo where they are proud of their club, and they will tell you as much. Ask people in Logro, Fuenlabrada, and Miranda where he played and they will say the same thing. They might even at Barakaldo, where he scored five times, one of them from the half-way line. Ask his teammate if he found a place in the south when his team won a historic promotion. There is something different about him. Even a summer on trial was enough to leave a mark on some. Some would bring him back. He did something during their promotion celebrations when he announced his retirement this past week. Combining it with a marriage proposal. He only got two goals in four months, but the impact goes beyond that. The guard of honor will be at his last home game. He played the last game of his career on Sunday. - ESPN+ viewers guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more
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There may be no player like him at that level, but what mattered was the people he met along the way. Even if it was just eight minutes, mates would come and watch me play, even if I wasn't the best player. That is the business.
He left a mark over what really is a lifetime, and with apologies, it may be time to recognize bias here. Ask Michu if he is the greatest player in Real Oviedo's history. Diego Cerver is awesome.
Michu knows. Everyone does. Not the best, but the greatest. The person they loved the most. One of the players they knew was the one they felt a connection with. What being a cult hero is all about is connection. It is possible that it is intangible, perhaps. Possibly, inexplicable. Even unquantifiable. Something.
Wait: unquantifiable? Not quite. The only player who has scored more goals for the club than Cervero is Isidro Lángara, who has the best goal ratio in the entire history of the national team. The electric forward line saw Oviedo register their best-ever league finishes just before the civil. Two men are a long way ahead. They are a long way behind.
He scored 141 goals for Oviedo. He was asked which goals he wanted to score. In the first division, in the second division, and in front of his fans, he said, against his rivals. They loved him even though he never had the chance to score. It made them love him more.
He was there in both good and bad times. Very, very, very bad. They loved him because of that. His club was also his. He only speaks English when asked what Oviedo means to him. He could end up as the doctor there one day.
When he joined his hometown club at the age of 9, he was called into the first team because there weren't many other players. The team was demoted from the first division in 2001. The club was demoted to the second division because of their financial crisis and then to the first division because of the players' protest. In two years, Oviedo went from the first division to the third, which is anything from the seventh to the 24th tier. It was the end. It seemed like it. The local council turned its back on them and they were on the verge of going out of business. There was no one left. There wasn't any hope either.
Manolo Lafuente refused to give in. And so did Cervero. Those left in the youth system were built a team by Oviedo. One day, when he was leaving the city, he got a call in his car telling him they wanted to offer him a first-team contract. He was told to go home, speak to his family, and come back tomorrow to let us know. He stopped the car and drove to the club offices. He was not going to risk them changing their minds.
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He was a big, burly, and with giant sideburns, but he didn't score for nine games. He got four in his 10th. It was November of 2003 At the end of the season, Oviedo did not go up. He was angry. He made a vow that he would either die or leave if he was not playing in the first division with Oviedo.
They did the next year. He scored 18. He left because of the need to complete his medical studies, having scored 31 goals in 92 league games.
He was back in 2007. The third division was where Oviedo had slipped down. It's time to repeat his vow. He scored 35 the year after. He scored in Mallorca when he went up. He scored 61 goals in 76 league games. There was a future for Oviedo. He left them where he said he would.
Diego Cervero is more than a football player, he is the symbol of the resurrection of a team, one of those figures that are irreplaceable when it comes to telling the history of a sporting institution. When they were going through the worst, a long way from professional football, he was the man who best represented the entire fan base.
Yes, Oviedo was alive. Just about.
It was becoming more and more possible for Oviedo to disappear, but he was promised in 2010 that it was impossible. The owner of the business that provoked the economic crisis fled across the Atlantic Ocean and was being pursued by the police. In 2012 the club had an interim board of fans who were desperately trying to keep the club afloat.
By November, Oviedo was 15 days from going out of business. The response was massive and the fans saved the club at the eleventh hour. Fans lined up outside the club offices to buy shares, and Cervero pizzas were delivered. He bought shares of his own. A lot of them.
promotion did not happen that year. It did two years later. By that time, Cervero wasn't considered good enough. He was the club captain, but not in the team. His career seemed to be coming to an end as he barely played. He came on as a sub in the first leg of the playoff against Cádiz, which returned Oviedo to the second division.
They were only allowed to play if they were in trouble. If he got anything at all, he'd have to work for a few minutes every day. He had a feeling that his time had come, even though he didn't like it. He was correct. There was a cross on the ground. 30,000 people lost their minds when his goal flew into the net, it was the most important goal anyone had scored in 20 years at the club.
No one lost it like Cervero. A crazy person. He was in the middle of the madness, his and theirs, the whole place going crazy, barely able to believe this. He knew he wouldn't get a chance to play in the division he was going to go to. There was no choreographed celebration, just the rawest of emotion, screaming, thumping at his chest and then his head, down on his knees pounding the turf with his fists, tears in his eyes.
There were more this week. It is the end of an era. A career ends and another begins. There is a doctor in the house.
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