“I was playing at the South American Under-17 Championship in Paraguay and got the call that changed my whole life. I was sitting in my hotel room, and my parents were there staying in another room.
My mom called me and said, “Hey, come to our room right now. There’s some people here who want to talk to you. Fede, come now. These men are from Real Madrid.”
Literally, I thought she was pulling a prank. I rushed over to the room to see what was going on, and sure enough, there were two guys there I’d never seen before.
She had tears in her eyes. The guys started speaking in Castilian, not South American Spanish, and I thought: Holy shit. They’re not from around here. Is this real?
They told me, “We’re from Real Madrid. We believe that you can become a star for us. We want you and your parents to move over to Madrid.”
I looked at my mom. I looked at my agent like: “Nah. You’re joking with me.” My mom looked back like: “Shut up, Fede. We are not joking with you.”
There are 500,000 players in the world and Madrid want to sign me? What? I literally ran out of the room. I was yelling, “Where’s Dad? I need to tell Dad!”I ran down to the lobby.
My dad was standing around talking to one of the other parents, and I said, “Dad!! Dad!!! Madrid are here!!” He said, “What? What do you mean they’re here? Where?” I said, “Up in the room! They want to sign me! Real Madrid want to sign me!” He looked at me like I was the craziest person in the world.
He said, “Up in the room? Well what are you doing down here? Get back up there, you idiot!” Hahahah.
I sprinted running back up to the room, and thankfully the guys from Madrid were still there, and it wasn’t all a dream. That was the first perfect day of my life.”
