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During Holy Week 2017, those responsible for Begoña, a team from the Bilbao neighborhood next to the basilica of the same name, learned that one of the youth team players, Álvaro Djaló, from Madrid from Vallecas, had left without permission to do a test in several Portuguese teams. He had said at the club that he was taking advantage of the holidays to go take care of his grandmother, but two weeks passed and he didn’t show up. They detected him on Instagram, where he had posted photos at Benfica’s training fields.
The president of Begoña then alerted Athletic, of which it is the agreed club, and in Lezama they told them that they did not know the player, whom no one had followed up, not even two clubs like Santutxu and Danok Bat, which share facilities with Begoña, and that they had signed a few players from the blue and white team, which had won the Biscayan Youth League and Cup the previous year with Djaló in its ranks. The footballer did not pass the Benfica test nor that of Sporting de Portugal, but he was not discouraged and decided to take another one with Braga, the team that finally decided to sign him and where he triumphed. He has played in the Champions League, he has scored four goals in the top continental competition, one of them against Real Madrid, and six in the Portuguese league, where he has provided three assists. Now, Athletic has decided to spend 15 million euros and has already announced the agreement to sign him for five seasons. He will join at the beginning of the next course.
The adventure in Portugal has gone well for the Madrid-born footballer, of Guinean origin and raised in Bizkaia since he was five years old. He is the cousin of another player from the red and white team, Adu Ares, he plays as a winger, he is fast, skilled and has a good relationship with the goal. He has played in the Champions League and also the Europa League.
“I have never understood that they did not do any tests on him at Athletic,” he noted in an interview with The mail, one of those responsible for his training at Begoña, where he arrived from San Miguel de Basauri. They didn’t call him and he decided to take charge of his future. Without a representative, playing in a modest team, he traveled to Portugal at his own risk and expense. He had only told some of his teammates, who encouraged him, but at the same time they thought he had gone crazy. He returned to Bilbao after the tests. His coach did not field him, as punishment for his absence, in the last league game. They tied and did not advance. Shortly after he received a positive response from Braga. He rose through the lower teams and in 2022 he signed a professional contract that bound him until 2027. He had a termination clause of 20 million euros. The negotiation with Athletic has reduced that amount, and in June, Álvaro Djaló will return to Bilbao. “My family is from Guinea-Bissau, but I don’t know the country. I would like to play for Spain,” he confesses.