Toni Dovale, player trained at the Masía del FC Barcelona and globetrotter of the ball in recent years, helps fight COVID-19 in the pharmacy that his family has in A Coruña while waiting for the pandemic to allow him to focus again on football, already with a lesson learned: “We cannot make many long-term plans.”
To the, the coronavirus caught him packing his suitcases to return to Thailand, his last football destination after having passed through different clubs in Spain (Celta, Huesca, Leganés and Rayo), the United States (Kansas), India and Cyprus.
“Like the majority of Spaniards, my life has changed a lot. I finished the season in India before Christmas, which is the big break in the Asian market; I was preparing everything to leave to play there another season and the issue began to get complicated, “he explains in an interview with Efe.
He says that in India they first put Europeans traveling there in quarantine, then they began to prevent flights from their country of origin from landing and a few days later they decreed a state of alarm in Spain. Total, who stayed in A Coruña, locked up, like everyone else.
And since he finished his pharmacy degree “three or four years ago” and only had the internships pending, he found the ideal opportunity to be in his family’s pharmacy and thus contribute his bit, he points out.
Lack of planning
From the pharmacy he criticizes the lack of planning that, he understands, there has been in Spain to tackle a problem that was already sensed. Five weeks ago, when preparing to travel, I was trying to get masks, hydroalcoholic gels, and there was no more supply.
“That, three weeks after decreeing the state of alarm, when they told us that nothing was happening and they were calling us to demonstrate and telling us that the film was very different,” he questions.
But he did not hesitate to expose himself in the pharmacy in “quite third world” conditions, first with masks made with kitchen paper and staples and, now, with others that do not have a filter.
Wants to play soccer
Working in the pharmacy is not something that was part of his plans because what he wants is to play soccer, but his body asked him to go to the pharmacy without forgetting his daily workouts so as not to lose shape.
“Given the situation, what I thought is what I can do for the people, for my family. And thanks to my career I can help. My mother is older, already at an age close to retirement, she is giving the callus with certain conditions security quite precarious like all health workers and pharmacists and the situation being like that I could not stay at home, “he argues.
He maintains that these complicated situations are what define the real character of people, and he wanted to take a step forward.
“Now we are all equally useful, both the one at the foot of the canyon, so to speak, and the one who is respecting the rules and staying home,” he reasons.
Thanks for the applause
He does not consider himself a “hero” although he appreciates the applause, like the ones he hears from the interviewer because it is 8 pm and the conversation prevents him from going out into the street. “People give you encouragement, strength, I notice a lot the gratitude, but I think that the administrations have not lived up to what the circumstances demand,” he laments.
“The applause fills with pride but I cannot go to war with a slingshot, and being in a pharmacy with kitchen paper masks and staples is a shame,” says this Galician footballer, who lacks more support from the authorities and who has had to review publications, many from Asia, in order to inform the pharmacy customers.
Toni Dovale, who turned 30 on Saturday, likes to help people, but he misses playing football a lot because it is his life, whether in Spain, India or another country that seduces him.
“Now there is a high level of uncertainty. We do not know how football will develop, when the borders will open, so if a good opportunity appears in Spain I will value it too. I miss that, day to day, the sound of the ball, the smell of the grass, playing on a full field, that adrenaline, “concludes the pharmaceutical soccer player.
–
