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When you meet Joaquin, you can be sure of three things. His love for Real Betis will shine, his outgoing personality will charm you and, as all members of the club have warned him, he will be late.
He is the kind of player who is always the last to leave the training ground and the last to come out of the showers. His teammates laughed when they learned that we were waiting for him. There was an heard look that said "it's Joaquin".
For an hour and a half of training, the 37-year-old was at the center of attention: joking around with his team-mates, organizing games with his coaches, then refusing to give up a six-game loss. , complain bitterly. in the warm-down.
When he finally came out and sat in Seville 's hot spring for just an hour for this interview, the affection he' s having for his childhood club did not make him happy. could have been more obvious.
This is, in his own words, a "love story". One of them started at the age of 16, while he was making the one-hour trip from his home town of El Puerto de Santa Maria every day to train with him. Betis youth team.
"It did not take me long to start loving those colors," he told BBC Sport. "It was a dream I had as a child to train and play for the team.When you have the chance to achieve it, you love it forever."
Joaquin made his professional debut with Betis at the age of 19 in 2000. Nineteen years later, he still plays for them in the Spanish Premier League week after week.
On Saturday night, Joaquin will play for the 513th time at La Liga in one of the most contested matches of Spanish football. Betis will face the rival of the city, Seville, under the title El Gran Derbi.
The former Spanish international is the captain of Betis, his most emblematic player and now his shareholder. He claims to be the "fourth largest owner" of the club, having paid more than 1 million euros (£ 2,860,000) for 2% in 2017.
"It's a way of returning something after all that Betis has given me," he says. "I feel and I identify with this club.When the actions were put on sale, I wanted to contribute and play a role.
"Now, I'm kidding as a chef, but I really want my teammates to identify with me, trying to make them feel what I'm feeling, to understand how much it means to a lot of people and to give that little bit extra on the ground. "
Having proven himself as an exciting teenage winger, Joaquin has been hailed as one of Europe's brightest talents by helping Betis to enter the Champions League and win the Cup. from Spain in 2005, before Valencia did a record 21.5 m) for him the following year.
He moved to Malaga in 2011 and the Italian club Fiorentina in 2013 followed, but he returned to Betis in 2015. That's where his heart resides and in all the other clubs where he played, he always been dubbed "Joaquin el Betis" – one from Betis.
Before he left for Valencia, there had been other important offers, and if he had the impression that his career had never kept his promises, he admitted that love had perhaps hindered. A move to Manchester United was a possibility in 2003, while he was also on the verge of joining Real Madrid.
"Sometimes my dad tells me again that my love for Betis has made me lose a lot of good chances," he says.
"I know I've lost a chance to be part of a big team, it might have been nice, but now, when I look back, I see that it was not supposed to be the same." # 39; to be. "
"Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had moved to Madrid .It is true that it became very close, the closest, but I just felt that it was not for me. "
Some 20,000 spectators came to Benito Villamarin's Betis Stadium to welcome him home when he signed again with Fiorentina four years ago, and the link is still strong.
One-fifth of all jerseys sold by the club this season bear his name, and in Pena Betica Barrio de la Feria, a small fan-only bar located on a dark street in the heart of Seville, his supporters light up in the mention of his name.
"Joaquin is a symbol of the club," said fan Antonio Brea. "When he plays, he gives the team a sense of security, power, love.
"I hope he can play until he's 40. He's in a very good physical condition, just like Ryan Giggs."
At La Pena, filled with men, women and children and one of the world's 450 fan bars, Tim Tooher, an English expatriate, explains a little more about the complicated relationship of fans of Betis with their club.
"When people ask me where I come from, I say that I come from Seville but that I am" Betico ", it is the foreground of who people are feeling," he says. "But there is a masochistic self-identity."
Brea adds: "Betis is like love, you love but you suffer too."
This helps to explain the motto of the club, "Viva el Betis aunque pierda", which translates to: "Long live Betis, even if he loses."
The Betis trophy cabinet is not really overflowing. They won the Spanish league only once, in 1935, under the Irish coach Patrick O'Connell.
The club has experienced much of the twentieth century between the first two divisions and since 2000 has been relegated to four La Liga matches. But after returning to the top in 2015, more stability, if not silverware, followed.
Loyalty is a characteristic trait of Betis fans, who are proud to remain loyal to their team. Now, like Joaquin, they play an important role in the club's transformation.
Last season, Betis finished sixth, a place above Seville. This meant a return to European football after a three-year absence and this mandate allowed them to reach the knockout stages of the Europa League. They dominated their group in front of AC Milan, but lost against the Rennes French in the last 32. The Rivals of Seville have won this competition five times since 2006.
Earlier this season, Joaquin won 1-0 at home against Sevilla. He also scored when Betis beat Barcelona 4-3 in November, earning their first win at Camp Nou in more than 20 years.
When President Angel Haro and General Manager Jose Miguel Lopez Catalan took office three years ago, they had no experience of football. Haro has a background in renewable energies, while Lopez Catalan runs a video game company, but they are both longtime fans of Betis.
They started selling shares in Betis and 14,000 were bought by fans, ex-players, coaches and celebrities – about 55% of the club is now owned by single fans.
Sitting on the edge of the field, under a blue sky, on the vast stadium of Betis, with 60,000 seats – the fourth in Spain – Lopez Catalan explains the "project".
It designates a bracelet with the words "hora Betis hora", which means "now Betis now".
"It was a time when, if we did not change the Betis, do not compare the Betis to a modern club, we could still be in the second division and not be competitive as we are now – in Europe and for the purpose to finish fourth and fifth or sixth in the league, "he says.
"We have an important message in the stadium on a sign saying:" From parents to children, grandparents to grandchildren, a pbadion called Betis. "
"You see how Chinese, American or Arab companies are coming to Europe and it's very attractive to own a club – it's something we want to avoid – we want the fans to be the owners of Betis, the company that's going to be there. Future of the club We see Betis as a family, one of the most important things in your life.
The club recognizes the importance of attracting young fans. Out of 50,000 subscriptions (an additional 10,000 are on the waiting list), 14,000 were sold under 14 years old for 79 euros each.
"It's the future for us," adds Lopez Catalan. "It can affect our income with [the price of] these tickets, but this is not as important. "
Return to the Pena and you will see children dressed in green and white singing the club's songs. Tooher explains how her four-year-old daughter wanted to organize her birthday party there.
"She does not understand football yet, but it's Betica." In her heart, she's green and white – it's already a deep thing, "he says.
The Betis have historically attracted their supporters from the working clbad of Seville, with the belief that the elites preferred the more prosperous side of the city, Seville.
Andalusia has an unemployment rate of over 20% – the highest in Spain – and has always seen Betis fans leave the region looking for opportunities elsewhere. But as Julio Jimenez Heras, director of communications for Betis, says: "The people took away their family and Betis".
The Penas have sprung up all over the world. There is one in London, one in Blyth, in north-east England – largely thanks to the local Blyth Spartans team wearing the same colors – as well as in Edinburgh, Dublin, New York, Miami, Cape Town and Argentina. In the north-east of Spain, Catalonia has between 30 and 35 people.
Betis is one of the largest clubs in the country and ranks fourth in a number of categories: stadium size, subscribers, television audiences and social media.
"We want to put Betis in the world," said Lopez Catalan.
Back in the orange tree-lined streets of Seville's Heliopolis district, all the attention falls on the Saturday derby at the Ramon Sanchez-Pizjuan stadium in Seville, just 4 km from the stadium. Betis.
Betis has won the last two derbies and another win could be crucial for this season's rivalry. They are ninth and Sevilla fifth, with six points between them. A potential European spot is at stake.
There is also the additional drama of the match that takes place the day before one of the biggest festivals in the city, Semana Santa – Holy Week. The derby is the most important game of the season, an intense occasion. The rivalry is deep. As Brea says in the Pena: "Families are divided."
It is unlikely that you will see the red color in the Betis stadium. This is the color of Seville. When Betis joined Coca-Cola, they asked that the logo be changed to green in the stadium. They claim to be one of the first clubs, alongside Boca Juniors of Argentina, to have obtained this request. A club employee said that he would never let his son wear red.
"The way this city lives football is not common," Joaquin said.
"All stops … I do not know another city that lives football this way, people become really emotional and feelings are high, it's the only thing that counts and that counts so much for fans.
"It's all about bragging rights.The day after the match, they go to work and go to see their colleagues, make jokes and brag, but if we lose, it's a whole week of suffering."
Nobody likes Seville fans more than Joaquin. No one understands the importance of a derby win.
After his victory in the return match in September, he said that scoring against "eternal rivals" meant that he could "leave football like a happy man". After the decisive 5-3 win over Betis last season, he said: "There will be no rest tonight." Anyone who comes home before five in the morning is fined. "
He says now: "I'm joking with Seville fans, I still love him, but always with respect, it's a tradition in town, joking with neighbors and friends who support the other team in a pleasant way. We do not like going too far, we love to joke in Seville – it's part of the culture. "
Joaquin still has a year of contract and Saturday's game will likely be one of his last derbys. He is now less a flying winger than a central midfielder.
"I do not have a lot of time, but I do not care," he says. "Even though I am retiring soon, I will be happy.I love every day coming here to work and train with my teammates.
"There are no secrets to playing at the highest level at this age, I feel lucky because the league is very demanding, I am limited by my age, my body, but you can always change something, like your way to play.
"The bottom line is that I'm still as enthusiastic as the first day, I work very hard, I feel important, and that plays an important role as good mental health helps the body." . "
Joaquin says he's counting his debut at Betis and his first of 51 caps for Spain as the biggest moments of his career. When asked if he regrets something, he shakes his head.
"I do not regret anything that I have done in football, I could have played in other teams." I might have been part of a bigger one. great team, but all decisions were made based on my happiness and that of my family, I was not looking for money.
The great loves of Joaquin: Betis, family and football.
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