On the face of it, "16-year-old to sign new contract" is hardly earth-shattering news, but the case of Álvaro Vadillo has turned into enough of a soap opera over the past few days to be worth mentioning.
The young winger, who comes from near Cádiz, is regarded as stone-cold-certain future star by the Betis backroom staff. He's a Spanish youth international and has already played for Betis B, scoring a vital last-minute winner towards the end of the season. Just lately, however, he's been mulling over offers from Real Madrid and Fiorentina, both of whom were keen to get their hands on Betis's best young player.
The deal being proposed by the Italians in particular sounded hard to turn down, involving a six-figure cheque, a multi-year contract and paid-for accommodation in Italy for his parents. Betis admitted they couldn't compete and until this morning it was assumed he would be off.
The narrative seems to have changed course today, however. While the verdiblancos still won't have been able to offer close to what he was promised by Fiorentina, they obviously have been able to come up with a package that's just tempting enough. "I'm a Bético and I want to be successful with Betis," he told a radio programme this morning. So, although he admits the money on offer from Florence was "dizzying". he's agreed to sign a new contract on Monday.
Vadillo had already been promised he would spend pre-season training with the first team and it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that an encouraging last-minute phone call from Pepe Mel (who's on holiday in America) helped persuade him to stay. Either way, I hope this post is the first of many,many mentions here for the young man. Álvaro Vadillo - remember the name.
UPDATE: More quotes from young Álvaro: "The truth is that I was clear in mind; I wanted to be at Betis, but seeing the offer from Fiorentina and with the idea of helping my parents, that's what made me think. But after talking with my father, he told me to think about my happiness... Moneywise the offer from Betis doesn't match the one from Fiorentina, but I don't care about that. I'm comfortable here and I wouldn't have had that in Italy."
(Pic from ABC de Sevilla)
So hard to beat!
Excellent news
Posted by: Noel | Friday, 17 June 2011 at 06:14 PM
Good to see someone turn down big money for a change.
Posted by: Kyle | Friday, 17 June 2011 at 08:20 PM
This is amazing! It's so heartwarming to see such club loyalty these days. Hope to see great things from him in the future.
Posted by: Theresa | Friday, 17 June 2011 at 09:39 PM