“It’s very hot here, isn’t it?” I said while fanning myself. “No, it’s fine here,” he answered, to my right, in a low voice. “It must be nerves. It’s the same thing that happens to any footballer before a big game. The nerves of the previous hours are the worst. Then, when the ball starts rolling, they disappear.” This is how Juan Carlos Unzué managed to calm my nerves prior to the special programming that TV3 dedicated to ALS on Tuesday night. With simplicity and serenity. As if he were not the protagonist, the one responsible for having revolutionized the universe of this cruel disease and the one responsible for us all being there, on the set, that Tuesday night. Sick people, family members, caregivers, the Miquel Valls Foundation, Dr. Povedano, journalists, cameras, filmmakers, producers, makeup artists… all gathered there with a single objective, the one that Unzué set from the beginning: to make ALS stop be invisible so that those who suffer from it and their families can live with dignity.
As his wife, María, for whom I feel a special devotion, says, Juan Carlos gives himself body and soul to everything he does. He did it as a goalkeeper, he did it as a coach and now he does exactly the same with the last team he signed for. And that is what Unzué explains. The last team of Juancar, which premiered on television on Tuesday night. How the life of an elite soccer professional and father of a family changes when he receives this diagnosis and how his appearance in the ALS universe changes the panorama of the disease, the patients and their families. That’s why Juan Carlos wasn’t alone on set on Tuesday. There was all his equipment. Also those who unfortunately are no longer here, very well represented by their families. A group of people of exceptional human category who look each other in the eyes and already know what is there. Only they know it. And despite everything they are infinitely generous. One of them, Ilde Oliveras, explained to me that, once diagnosed, his children decided that, from then on, every day had to be the best day. Because tomorrow does not exist for ALS patients. “Today is the best day. It’s my motto now,” he said. What genius. And I asked his permission to borrow it. This Juan Carlos team is added to the teams he already had. For this reason, Pep Guardiola and Joan Laporta were also present on Tuesday. Because the friendship between the three is the key to the success of the mother of the initiatives to raise funds for ALS: the Camp Nou charity match between Barça and City in August of last year. More than 4.3 million euros for research. Big numbers or small. Everything adds up to advance research, to help patients and their families and to make visible what until now was invisible. The Ondas award for the best documentary that Unzué will receive. Juancar’s last team is one more step.
