Ricky Fargas, the singer-songwriter who turned down a Champions club

Ricardo Fargas Roger, better known as Ricky fargas (Manresa, 1973), picks up the phone as soon as they finish their working day. He works as a medical visitor, but on his Instagram profile it is difficult to find an image in which he does not appear on a stage or with a guitar in his hands. It is difficult to decipher, therefore, that a daring ex-footballer is talking on the other side of the line who accepted the offer of a foreign club long before Iniesta's goal served as a red carpet for the rest of the emigrants. Ricky Fargas was the first Spaniard to play in the Veikkausliiga (Finnish First Division). A pioneer whose story is as unknown as it is fascinating.

Born in 1973 in Manresa, Ricky Fargas reached the Second Division of Spanish football when he was only 20 years old. He played in Castellón, Villarreal or Leganés. And although music was always part of his life, it was not until his landing in Madrid that he began to connect in the first person with the world of entertainment. “The players from Real Madrid, Atleti and Leganés were partying. Raúl, Redondo, El Cholo were there … Lega was the pretty girl. He was in Second, but everyone wanted him to fight to go up to First. We were at the Joy Eslava and they gave us passes to go to the Bernabéu and the Calderón. My colleagues would go, but I preferred to go to a concert hall. In the dressing room they said: 'Damn, how strange is Catalan'“, recalls Fargas, whose injuries prevented him from enjoying a city, Madrid, to the fullest, with which he confesses to being in love.

He came home to play at the Gramenet, and it was then that the opportunity to go abroad arose. 'What about Finland?', He snapped when a representative conveyed the interest of the FC Jazz by Pori, a team that had just fallen in the preliminary phase of the Champions League. “Don't ask me why, but I was seduced by the idea of ​​playing there. It was not badly paid and I embarked on the adventure”, details Ricky, who traveled to Finland practically blind: “There was no internet and it was impossible to investigate the competition or who my teammates were going to be. My only reference was that I was going to a very English football game. ” Ricky Fargas landed in Pori on a Thursday and 24 hours later he made his debut as a starter in the Veikkausliiga: “In my presentation I said that I was a man from the area and that I was doing well in the head, but when I jumped onto the field I met 20 guys of 1.90 I thought: 'Now how do I teach them that it is true that I am in a good head?'

Pori's FC Jazz had just won two leagues in the last five years. Ricky Fargas was told that they had succeeded thanks, in part, to the quality of their Brazilian footballers. “They said they were the most, but when I saw them play I thought: 'These guys would not play in the Second Division of Spain'. They made four pipes and two cuts. They did not advance, but for the public it was the host,” recalls the Spaniard , what scored 14 goals in the 18 games he played in Finland. “I did well. In fact, HJK Helsinki, which is like Madrid or Barça in Finland, made me an offer. But I thought enough was enough and I returned to Spain.” It should be noted that HJK had just played the group stage of the Champions League, where Kaiserslautern, Benfica and PSV were measured. “Then I regretted it. Another year at a club like Helsinki would not have been bad at all, but the climate in Finland is very harsh. And the people, until you understand them, are also very cold. The same impetus I had to go I had it to return, “he acknowledges.

After returning from Finland, Ricky Fargas ended up in Second Division B and, in parallel with football, began to give his first bowling at gambling dens. “There was no internet and it was easy for me to keep it in secret. That he played at night would not have been well seen at the club level. One night I ran into a sports journalist and he said: 'You sound like me.' I thought: 'Whatever I say. who I am…'”. The man from Manresa was beginning to compose his first songs when the opportunity arose to play in China, where it did not last long because “everything was a real disaster”. “I was in Shandong, 700 kilometers from Beijing. The Super League had not yet been created and there was an important marketing of players. Many savvy representatives brought footballers from South America and sold them as if they were stars,” he recalls. He returned to hang up his boots, finally take down the guitar and, finally, dedicate himself to what really makes him happy: music. Along with his band, 'The ideal 11' in reference to his football past, Ricky is preparing his third album and a tour that will take him back to places he has already visited as a footballer. On this occasion, the training sessions and the ball will give way to rehearsals and guitar.