He was looking for a change of scenery after a really complicated season at Espanyol and the coronavirus crisis about to explode. It was the month of February when the Cantabrian forward Eli del Estal (27 years old) announced his sudden departure to a League as remote and unknown as that of South Korea: “I leave physically and mentally exhausted but with the feeling of having given everything for my team and in love with this great family. I take what I have lived and what I suffered ”, he wrote on his social networks.
How does a woman who triumphs in Spanish football go to the other side of the world? “I received the team's offer for the second time and I decided to accept because I felt the need for a change at that time,” he explains in a telephone interview with Mundo Deportivo. “I knew that this experience for me was going to be a leap in quality because football here is very technical,” he adds.
Actually, the change has been radical for the player, although it has not prevented her from succeeding from day one and adapting quickly. “It has nothing to do with Spanish football, it is one of the things that has surprised me the most. It's all technical and a very individual football since you don't work tactically ”, highlights the scorer.
Eli has already become one of the stars of the Hyundai Steel Red Angels, champion of the last eight editions of the WK League -the South Korean league-, a team that had already been interested in her last year and whose insistence has paid off. The result could not be better: the team has once again conquered the regular league with the Spanish as the sixth highest scorer of the tournament, with eight goals in 16 games.
“It's a wonderful country”
“It is the first title of my career and I cannot be happier,” she insists. “The club has welcomed me very well from the beginning, they are very respectful people and the country is wonderful to visit”, highlights the expert, who has been most surprised by “the food, which I love. Koreans are much colder than us and that makes life very different, ”he says.
“I came alone but I have met several Spaniards and I have been lucky enough to meet them for a day, although the truth is that there is hardly time to rest here,” she says about her day to day in South Korea.
On how to live there the coronavirus pandemic, the player explains that “at the beginning there were many restrictive measures and here they are very obedient regarding this issue. The spread was quickly stopped and now there are around 10 infected a day. We are at alarm level 1, the lowest, and life is practically normal ”, he celebrates.
And he reveals how he plans to celebrate the title: “I guess at karaoke.” Of course not.