Encounter with a wild Dani Ceballos (long)

So this happened on Saturday. It’ll be all text and no pictures because I’m a dull boy and that’s largely how it all transpired. I’m also not a good storyteller over text or in person so this could well be more dreadful than it actually was.

Queuing to check-in at Seville Airport, affectionately known as SVQ, I look up and see a figure dressed quite eccentrically. Neon yellow puffer jacket, nice shoes, cap, beard magnifico. Mostly the neon. I couldn’t be sure but it sure looked like, well uncannily like Daniel Ceballos. I didn’t take my chance, check-in was a bloodbath, I thought I’d lost him. 20 minutes of waiting in the dual Luton-Stansted waiting room, who rocks up? "Dani Ceballos". We end up like loosely packed sardines in the messy Lutstead queue, but I say nothing. I hear him say Luton. Relief. We’ll be on the same flight. I click my phone on several times in the hope that he sees my screensaver of Auba chipping Martin Dubravka four times. He doesn’t. I’ve been close enough to say something off-hand for quite some time but can’t bring myself to, he has a large family entourage and I don’t want to bother him, the key theme of this story.

I know how I should behave around famous people but in action, it’s a bit different. When we make eye contact I make sure to execute the frown smile, keen not to appear overeager. Play hard to get, get him to initiate, maybe he’s starting to feel like he recognises me from somewhere? No cigar.

He ends up sitting three rows in front of me on the plane. Getting quite difficult not to make awkward eye contact at this point, he’s leaning back to talk to his family and unsurprisingly meets my eyes, the equivalent of perked-up ears at this point. I ensure it’s brief though. I really don’t want to bother this man, or his family. I realise I have a physical boarding card due to an earlier check-in fiasco. I decide to write on it in Spanish with a basic sort of, merry Christmas to the Ceballoses, good luck in everything you do, hope to see you on the pitch again soon.

I daydream of passing it to him through his family, maybe he decides to write back, and we rally until there’s not a jot of white space left. Then I’d keep it.

This doesn’t happen. I’m too shy so I chase him off the plane at a distance and find him nearly alone in a long corridor. Perfect moment. Maybe abandon the boarding card, just say hi, this is it.

I tap him on the shoulder, he turns around.

"I don’t wanna bother you."

I hand him the boarding pass and walk away up the long, straight corridor, too afraid to look back. I recall a stunned thanks.

I can’t coax the suitcases out myself, try as I might, so he ends up in baggage claim with me, going straight to the other side.

That’s about it. Hope he thinks about it on the pitch.