Dani Benítez's life without brakes: "The problem was mine, I didn't listen to anyone"

Dani Benítez (Lloseta, 1987) did not fall off when he agreed to work in a fertilizer company. With that salary he would support the family, while he killed the bug in the Arenas de Armilla, from Tercera REFF. His life in Granada is no longer that debauchery that ended abruptly in February 2014 due to a positive cocaine test.. Today is happy.

You no longer touch a drop of alcohol, nor have you flirted with drugs again.. Is it considered completely cured? That would be admitting that I have had a problem with these substances, which has not been the case.. Alcohol, for example, I don't really like. The people around me know it. I don't really feel like it, so I don't drink. One of the keys to his book is the importance he gives to those who lent him a hand in such a difficult time…At that time I had practically no contact with my family, but I always I have had friends who have helped me a lot. What happened was that at that time I didn't listen to anyone.. I have always been very on my way and maybe if I had listened to a lot of people around me, I wouldn't have made some mistakes.. The problem was mine, that I didn't listen to anyone. Did no friend tell him that he was throwing his life overboard? They've told me that many times, but it was very complicated with that Dani. I was so closed in my thoughts and in my world that it was impossible. Mikel Rico, for example, was possibly the soccer teammate who said it to me the most times, but Dani did what he wanted. Maradona's close friends said that it was always necessary to distinguish between Diego, the boy who had grown up among the misery of Villa Fiorito , and Maradona, the character he himself had created to protect himself from the world. Does this sound familiar to you? I feel quite identified. Let's see, I have always been a very simple person and very close to everyone.. In fact, people who have asked me for a photo on the street have always told me: “Hey, that's normal.”. The thing is, I am a normal person, made of flesh and blood.. What happens is that a character very different from who I really am was built around my football figure.. It is true that he had that point of being a more extroverted, more dynamic child, more of an attention-grabber.. But it had nothing really to do with anything that's been said that I've done.. Granada is a city where it is the order of the day to talk about people or invent things. Things have been said that whoever invented them was either drunk or wanted to make a fool of themselves with their colleagues.. They even said I had played an Audi R8 in a poker game.. It's crazy. Throughout all these years in football he will have met many unscrupulous people. Do you still hold a grudge against anyone? Honestly, no.. Neither to football people nor to anyone. I am zero resentful. Although I have obviously experienced situations or moments where I could have that resentment, it is something that I do not like.

“They no longer cared about me, not even to send me a message and see how I was doing”

Today there is talk that footballers live isolated in a bubble that isolates them from the real world. Now that you live a little away from all that. How do you see this phenomenon from the outside? In my time, after training we would go to the bar across the street to have a Coca-Cola, a beer or some tapas.. Today that is impossible. And you, those of the press, know it, because every day it is more difficult for you to reach a footballer simply to interview him. And on the one hand I understand it because if people talk a lot, in the end what you as a footballer are looking for is to go a little unnoticed. For that part I understand and respect it. But not for another. I think the rapprochement with the fans has been lost a bit. And I think that is also good for both the club and the players. It is true that not everyone is like that. There are some nearby. But there is also a lot of fear of criticism, of people speaking badly of him.. And he knows perfectly well that from one day to the next it can go from very good to very bad.. That fear is what has made them close a little. Guti used to say: “I see myself dating at 20 years old, not at 60.”. I see myself in the disco now, not in 40 years.” That's what 90% of people think, but of course, being more media, Guti's message had much more force. He was being sincere and I admire that. The social stigma of being singled out in Granada must have been complicated, but seeing yourself as a stinker among your colleagues could have stung even more… I am aware that I earned it for what I did, but it is also true that it hurt me a lot. Because they don't tell you, but you perceive it. I'm not stupid and I realized that it was no longer the same. They no longer cared about me, not even to send me a message and see how I was doing.. Footballers want to have as few problems as possible and it is very rare that someone comes out to defend you.. But that has also helped me to really know who has been with me and who has not.. You learn everything in this life. Can you explain in words what it felt like driving a car at almost 300 km? No, you can't.. I guess someone might think “this guy is stupid,” because he was risking my life and the lives of others, which is even worse.. But it was a feeling of total disconnection. I turned the volume up to full blast and whatever the car was playing.. That moment of adrenaline could not be replaced with anything.. I escaped from everything. He did it like someone who has a problem and needs to take some pills. Of all the backpacks you have had to carry in life, which one has been the heaviest? Obviously, one was the death of my mother in 2011. The other is that I have always missed having a family.. When you come from parents who don't have a good relationship…. That is the backpack that has given me the most problems.. Although I didn't say anything, logically I suffered in silence.

When cancer took your mother, you were in a spiral of excesses that prevented you from feeling anything…I lost my enthusiasm for everything, I didn't care if everything was black or white. That was my problem. I didn't notice anything, you know? It's like my life has ended, like I've been on standby for a while. Today I face it with much more peace of mind. Will this book help you forgive your father? My father has been forgiven for a long time.. Last week they asked me if he had abused me. My father did not abuse me. I mean, he didn't beat me. But the fact that I talk like that about him is because it hurt me a lot that he didn't know how to manage what a relationship between father and son is.. Because now I, as a father of three children, see it very differently, you know? If I had to forgive him for something, it would be for not having managed better, for not having been closer.. Each one knows what he does in his life and if he has not had that decision to tell me anything, either out of pride or because he sees it in a different way, then that's it.. In the end he is my father and no one is going to change that. One of the most powerful images in the book is him locked in his house in Mallorca, with the blinds drawn, after testing positive for cocaine.. Did you ever think about suicide? Yes, of course.. It coincided with my separation and was possibly the hardest moment of my life.. There came a point where I said “either I go ahead, face everything and try to change or I want to leave this world.”. Because it made no sense for me to continue here. Did you resort to the help of any professional? I totally respect psychologists and psychiatrists, but I believe that in the end you come out on your own.. With that, it helped me to shoot, to be stubborn and to get what I wanted, which was change.. I never went to or needed help from a professional.

“One of my mistakes was being so normal and close to everyone”

Some players do not see football as an end in itself, but as a means to acquire fame and money.. Did you really like football? One of my mistakes was being so normal and close to everyone. And that was also contradictory because I love football and I hate fame.. I am a guy with a lot of personality and I have always not cared. He has only set foot in the Los Cármenes stadium once again. Maybe out of nostalgia for a very good time in terms of football, but also very dark on a personal level…I went once with my daughter Candela, but I have not wanted to return out of guilt.. He told me: “Holy shit, I was in there playing and now I'm here for this and this.” And then also for the people, because imagine messing with everyone who practically knows who you are. Places with a lot of people bother me more and more, where they keep asking me for photos. I don't like. The bad part is that Granada didn't want to know anything about me and that hurt me much more than anything else. So I prefer not to go. At the board and club level, things are being done very, very badly. That's why the club is like this, honestly. If one day one of your children faces the problems that you suffered… how do you think they would act? You would try to talk to them, explain things to them. I don't think it will happen, honestly, but if it does, I am completely prepared to go through it and help you so you don't have that problem.. Thank God. My children are phenomenal. They are very smart kids and I don't think they are going to suffer the same.

Now there is a lot of talk about insults in stadiums. They sang everything to you. Did you ever think that you deserved it? If my name was Vinicius… oh my! What I have experienced in Third Division fields has been crazy, but I have never thought that I deserved it. I think there is no excuse to enter into personal matters. You believe a lot in destiny. Do you think all this suffering has been worth it? Of course. I have learned a lot and it has made me mature. Because the greatest of my evils has been the lack of maturity.