Koke and a 554 for eternity

The thing about Koke comes almost from his cradle, from when he didn’t raise an inch from the ground. He was a baby who in 1992 had just arrived at a house in Vallecas, Sierra Madrona street, and his brother Borja, six years older, his real name tangled in his mouth. Jorge did not go out. he was koke. Koke.

And with Koke he stayed. Also in those matches against boys who were three heads and seven years taller in the park that faced the street from the El Cochinillo bar. Koke. That footballer who twenty years after those duels between wooden benches and jacket goals He achieved something that in the last 47 years of Atlético nobody had achieved: the record of games played with Adelardo’s rojiblanca. 553. On October 1, the counter started again at 554, tied to a boot. That of Koke Resurrección, AS Sports Award in 2022 for it. “It will be very difficult for anyone else to reach him,” Gabi acknowledged., Capi, his reference when it comes to wearing the bracelet on the biceps (from 2012 to 2018 he wore it) for an AS report in September, around his feat. With the emotion-filled voice of another older brother, this one from soccer.

‘Legendary captain’ could be read in capital letters on the back of the Atlético captain on October 6 in the Metropolitan auditorium. It was the day of passing the baton. At his side, Adelardo, the man who for 17 years defended the rojiblanca, the footballer who raised the Intercontinental to the sky of the Calderón, the legend who had set that record 47 years ago: the player who had worn the rojiblanca the most times. “It seemed like something impossible to achieve,” Gabi is also heard. And to Antonio López, and to Caminero, all icons of that shield that Koke had pinned to his chest long before doing it for real.. That really came from his cradle, in the blood of his father, Eugenio, who tied the Atleti scarf tightly around his children’s neck on Sundays on the way to the Calderón.

He was six years old when he became a ‘One Club Man’. And from the very foundation, the soccer fields of Cotorrubuelos, there where his father, his mother and his grandfather took turns to take him to train, along with his brother.. It was growing at the same time that the name of Borja was said in capital letters: he soon stood out, soon he was pointed out as a boy who would reach the first team. An injury cut him short, a broken toe, while Koke took a photo of himself as a child he idolizes in the sports city of Majadahonda with the boy on whose shoulders the club perched in its darkest years. Towers. The years would make them companions.

Because Koke with his work would go up. Category by category, bus to Cerro by bus. And it would fill the eye of José María Amorrortu, quarry director in 2006, to Suso García Pitarch, sports director of the first team that would make his first professional contract, to Abraham García, who would make him a starter in B when he was still a cadet, to Abel Resino. It was the last one in his stage as rojiblanco coach who would put his own counter to zero on November 19, 2009 at the Camp Nou. That of Koke, that footballer who also filled Cholo’s eye when he arrived in December 2011 to stop his loan to Málaga and lay the firmest foundation for this story.

“If I thought more about myself, maybe I’d do better, but it wouldn’t be Koke”, Koke himself recognized AS last March, when Adelardo’s record was only a handful of games away. A phrase that he defines him. That supportive footballer, who is always in his place and for the others, with tactics in his head and the tunnel-boring boot. That child who was never Jorge. Always Koke. As his brother baptized him. And he raised two steps. The Calderón and the Metropolitan. “I am very grateful to Diario AS for this award, it makes me very excited,” he confessed on his return from Qatar, when the domestic leagues and competitions are about to restart after the World Cup.

An award that in his private museum He also has another football brother, Diego Godín, AS América Award winner in 2015, with whom he sowed deep what Atleti is again today: a great in Europe, capable of blending between Messi’s Barça and Cristiano’s Madrid (LaLiga 2013 -2014). All tied to his boot. That of that footballer who already has 560 games with the rojiblanca. and what remains. And everyone who knows him agrees when describing him: he is a unique, unrepeatable footballer, but he is an even better person. Only in something he will not reach Adelardo. Goals scored. That one made 113. Those of Koke are 47.