Leonardo Silva was a man who had just turned twenty seven. He was born into a poor family and the only part of his life which had been more normal was his time at school. He got a bit tired with the academic life and moved to Santa Cruz and took up playing on the team which was very popular from what he remembers. He was very talented, he was very popular and he had talent. What was also very very nice about him was that there wasn’t a chance that anyone could say, “Well he wasn’t good enough” but he was also very honest and that meant everything, he didn’t lie to and that meant a lot to this team. So the team played against Barcelona which was a great team and he played there for eight consecutive games. The following season he was the best player, he was as good as he had ever been and his role grew during the years as well, the younger players looked up to him and played more often because they were aware of how good he truly was. When he finished his career at Real Madrid in 1986, he was now a man of his word, no longer a young man who could be tempted to take a step back out of the world of football, no longer he had to pretend to understand what we did here, which we did. We were an interesting and interesting country, he was still at the time, he didn’t get to be famous, like him, he still loved football. He would go to watch games at Elche, at San Mames, at Barcelona and so on. He would always go to Los Colchoneros. In 1986 he received a letter from his agent which read: “I have a serious request from you, please accept this request”. So the best player at the time did not hesitate for a second to take up what was an extraordinary offer. In the summer of 1986, he signed for Celta Vigo. His contract contained an agreement with Atletico Madrid. This was a huge surprise to all and at the time of his arrival to La Liga it was the least we had heard of the terms. It was like a little revolution, it was a little rebellion. That was also a huge surprise for us all at Celta. They have had so much success that at our age we felt it prudent to try and make our way in Spain. He had to adapt quickly to the physicality of Spanish football and we liked to play a strong football, with pace, with