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December 2023, the day before a match, the manager of a team in Spain's fourth tier assembles his squad. He reminds them of the plan - the bus leaves at 6am for an 11.30am kick-off 230km away, stopping to pick up players along the way - and puts on a video. It contains every goal the opposition striker has scored: there are eleven from thirteen matches and the centre-back quickly realizes that not one goal is a tap-in. Instead, Isaac Romero, the Sevilla B striker up there on the screen, makes them all. himself. "Unreal, absolutely unreal," the defender remembers. "You could tell he had to be in the first team and that's what happened. It's on fire."
That sounds easy, but it wasn't. "I never thought this," says Isaac. That morning he played in front of a few hundred people and didn't score. The next time he got a goal it was 12,581. The time after that 13,092. And a week later, when he checked his chest, turned, put it through the legs of an Osasuna defender and curled a perfect finish into a corner, 36,640 people went wild. Last Saturday, as he left after 85 exhausting minutes after running around the pitch and battering Real Sociedad, the Sánchez Pizjuán stood up to hand him an ovation and chant the name of their new, unexpected hero.
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Things have changed for him, and for them. December would be Isaac's penultimate match for Sevilla Atlético, the club's B team. Two days earlier the first team had been beaten by Mallorca: it was Sevilla's ninth game in a row without a win and a week later they made it 10 when they were hammered 3-0 by Getafe, dropping them to 17th place, with a equal number of points. 18th. Isaac's last game for Sevilla Atlético was against El Palo in January. Five days later he made his first-team debut at Alavés, which was immediately followed by two goals against Getafe in the cup, one against Girona, that top goal against Osasuna on his home debut and the winner against Atlético Madrid. He still couldn't last 90 minutes, but he had five goals and an assist in his first seven games.
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He provided another assist on Saturday as Sevilla defeated Real Sociedad 3-2 to move seven points clear of the bottom three, all but ensuring survival. The team that could not win in its ten matches has now lost just once in six - against Real Madrid, when the Isaac volley that could have secured victory was superbly saved by Andriy Lunin - and, says Diario de Sevilla, the man most of them had not won. What we had never heard of about a month ago is the 'soul' of the team. He's also a bit special, a natural finisher with something pure, unrefined about him, a player who says Diego Costa was his idol, crashing into everyone and chasing everything, "giving everything until I can give no more". He is, as his manager Quique Sánchez Flores emphasizes, an example of the footballer who transforms the entire team: "a path that they can all follow."
It has not been the most natural, direct path: this is not the right one B-team kid makes impact in first team, not least because Isaac is not a child at all. He is the son of the footballer with the World Cup winner at his side, 23 but too good for Segunda B.
He could not have foreseen this. No one else could either. If Isaac had his way this summer, he would probably be playing in the second division; had it not been for paperwork issues this winter and the club's failure to find a striker to sort things out, he would probably still be playing in the fourth. This is certainly another example of overcoming adversity, but also of luck, good and bad, and football's ability to somehow find a way.
Romero was born in Lebrija, a town of 27,432 inhabitants 60 kilometers south of Seville, where his grandparents had moved in the late 1970s when the marshes along the left bank of the Guadalquivir were drained to create arable land. lives. His father, Antonio, played for Atlético Sanluqueño, reached the second division with Xerez and became a kitman for local team Atlético Antoniano. His mother, Macarena, runs the club's bar. And Isaac also played for them and helped them get promoted regional Andalusia to that of Spain tercera division. He played this season in return for in Segunda B. He lost 2-0 and did not score. Now he has scored against Girona and Atlético and has been to the Bernabéu.
By the time he helped take over Antoniano, Isaac had been to Seville and Cádiz and back. He joined Sevilla as a child but left when they switched to 11-a-side. He spent 18 months in Cádiz, but that didn't work out either: it was far from home. At the age of 19 he played for Antoniano again, but his coach Francisco José Cordero, who had seen him grow and fill in and switched him to striker, remained convinced he could make it and called Sevilla. Carlos Marchena, the assistant coach at Sevilla Atlético, not only went to see him play; Marchena, 39 and recently retired, a former World Cup winner who still competes every session and absolutely loves football, went to play against him. He started working with Isaac, making training a real test. Finally he was convinced too.
Isaac came out of regional amateur football at the age of 19 and arrived late, although there was something in his development that made him different. It was 2018 and he initially joined Sevilla C and rose to the B team, but he had recurring shoulder problems, suffered a broken leg and time passed. This summer he joined the first team in preseason. But José Luis Mendilibar wanted a proven player, a professional. It was also not the case that Romero could be used occasionally: because he had turned 23, it had to be permanent if he joined the first team: he was too old to keep his B-team registration and move across the two squads to go. So Sevilla signed Mariano Díaz instead. There were no more squad slots.
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Isaac was on the verge of leaving permanently - second division club Albacete wanted him - but Seville's sporting director, Victor Orta, was able to convince him and his father to stay and preach patience. But even when the winter period arrived, with Flores making it very publicly clear that he no longer had any confidence in the strikers Mariano or Rafa Mir, who had only five league starts and two goals between them, and the departure of Fernando made it possible When they wanted to add another player, it didn't seem likely that it would be Isaac.
That's where fortune intervenes. Robert Bozenik's move from Boavista failed even after he underwent medical treatment, and then the attempt to sign David Datro Fofana, who looked set, failed as Chelsea had reached the foreign loan limit. Those weren't the only deals that couldn't be completed. Rafa Mir and Mariano were still there, but they might as well not have been anymore - "you either reach the level or you don't play," Flores said, claiming that "some people interpret demands differently". Youssef En-Nesyri was at the African Cup of Nations, Lucas Ocampos had to play as a false nine and the team was in crisis. And so it happened: there were 26 minutes against Alavés, and then the explosion.
A new idol had landed, but it had been there all along.
Celta Vigo 1-0 Almería, Valencia 2-2 Real Madrid, Getafe 3-3 Las Palmas, Rayo Vallecano 1-1 Cádiz, Sevilla 3-2 Real Sociedad, Athletic Bilbao 0-0 Barcelona, Real Mallorca 1-0 Girona , Atlético Madrid 2-1 Real Betis, Villarreal 5-1 Granada
"We didn't discover anyone; we saw the kids in training and we chose, that's all," says Flores. "I like Isaac because he does everything you ask of him. He fills us with energy. We are so lucky to have him with us and he is so humble that it makes him even greater. He is a lesson in humility for the entire group. It makes you emotional to see young people there. We were young once. The coach opens a door, but they are the ones doing things; they are great."
"He brought hunger to Seville; the team needed that and it has proven to be contagious," emphasized former manager Joaquín Caparrós. He is, says Diego Simeone, "everything a coach could look for." Even Spanish manager Luis de la Fuente describes him as "a boy I like a lot". Everyone does. Life with Isaac is "comfortable" for all of them, En-Nesyri admitted this weekend, especially for him. Released by the boy from Lebrija, a nice partnership has developed since the Moroccan returns from Afcon, one headline summed it up simply on Sunday morning: "What a pair of attackers Sevilla have!"
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"More than just a good player, Isaac is a good teammate, a good boy, super humble, super hardworking and ultimately fortune smiles on such people," said midfielder Óliver Torres. "He has been waiting for his moment: he is helping us and hopefully he can continue to help us for a long time. Every time he scores, we will be there to hug him. The truth is that he is a great discovery for everyone."
Well, almost everyone. In December, some defenders already knew: they had seen Isaac Romero there on their screen.