Cooperative City guards the memory of Dani Jarque

The phone of the Municipal Stadium Dani Jarque, which rings over and over again. But nobody responds. Logical. On top of the Cooperative City, the door of the facilities premains closed close up. And not because it is August, that too. A sign tied to the fence with zip ties testifies when could be the last time someone entered to touch a ball.

It is a note that dates March 12, and that warns of the closure until the day 27 of that month. The dates of the first state of alarm, of the naive beginning of a confinement that would change almost everything. Also the mood on the eleventh anniversary, which is fulfilled this unique August 8, 2020, without his countryman most popular and loved.

Between the suffocation of the heat wave and the sound of the cicadas, it is enough to walk a few meters, perhaps ten, wall to wall, to detect activity. At Complex Esportiu Municipal Pau Gasol, the other illustrious citizen of Sant Boi which gives its name to a kind of pavilion with a gym and swimming pool. There you will enter to exercise Victor Medina, neighborhood neighbor lifelong. “We all know each other here. Of course Dani was followed and dear. Even if you were from Barça, as is my case, you wanted him to do well, “he says.” Especially when he dialed the Madrid! “, he exclaims, by way of a wink. And he gets serious:” So his death hit us, of course. It was hard to digest. “

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In a downhill walk towards the bowels of the neighborhood, among the blocks that were built half a century ago as an innovative dormitory city, mostly destined for internal migration and aimed at facilitating neighborhood solidarity – hence its name -, few are the residents who they step on the street. “Or are in their houses sheltering of this sultry August, or they have gone to the beach, “warns a passerby. What is not closing is the pharmacy. And on top of that, it's cool. Bingo.

“Dani was from our gang of a lifetime, “he says Rosa Hidalgo, pharmacist and friend of Jarque. “We have not missed any year Gate 21 of the stadium, to see how we do it this time with the sanitary measures, “he considers. Not in vain, this Saturday they will be able to access a maximum of ten people at the same time, on a limited schedule, between eleven in the morning and two in the afternoon.

rose shared unquantifiable experiences with Dani, with his group of friends and with whom he was the partner of the eternal captain. Weekends in rural houses. Meals in the Txalaka of Castelldefels. “He loved it and, as he was so generous and kind, he almost always invited us,” the pharmacist evokes with a smile, who admits that there is not a day that I do not remember Jarque. “Also, I live in the apartment block across the street from where his parents live,” he says.

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It is shocking to hear from his voice the passage of that accursed day in August 2009. How he found out about the misfortune that occurred in Coverciano, during the concentration of Spanish. And how the friends got together to go to his house. “What I can never forgetr is that her puppy was going from one place to another, that day and many more, looking for Dani, waiting for his arrival “.

Not even the sticky sun, back on the street, undo the goose bumps generated by Rosa's story. The last stop of this walk, next to the municipal market and behind the Casal from the neighborhood, it cannot be more central or, again, more providential. On a bar terrace, have a coffee with ice Christian junyent. “What if I knew Dani? Sure! He trained me when I was a cadet at the Cooperative City“, he clears.

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“It must have been 15 years ago. Back then, he had already debuted at Espanyol and he played regularly. But it was the most natural and close in the world. Shy, even, until he got hold of the person and let go “, Cristian concedes, who explains:” We had our coach, but Dani –who had even played children in the team, which was called then Cooperativa-Ases– He added every afternoon he could. Very often. It helped us a lot in matters of technique, tactics, mentality … He was a very good person. “

Cristian, like Rosa, like Víctor, it cost him horrors believe the news that came from Italy that fatal August 8, 2009. Like all Espanyol fans. And to the world of football in general. But, especially to Ciudad Cooperativa, East workers' neighborhood and workers commemorating the sad anniversary with the added health and economic depression arising from the pandemic – “here a second confinement would have dire consequences,” Rosa warns – but, as it has always done, it will resist and move forward. Like the memory of the eternal captain.