It has been a long time, so long it doesn’t have the same name any more, but on Friday Elvira Mato returns to the Neckarstadion. In those days, a resident at No 57 Friedhofstrasse, in the city that was her home for 22 years, she would go to watch her local team, VfB Stuttgart. For a while, they had a young, emerging forward called Jürgen Klinsmann; now she is here to watch an older striker as Germany face Spain in the Euro 2024 quarter-final. His name is Joselu, he is Elvira’s son, and he was born here in 1990. It has been a long journey back.
Joselu’s parents were among the 600,000 Spaniards who emigrated to Germany in the 1960s and 70s. His father drove a post van and Joselu briefly went to school in Stuttgart but soon moved to Silleda, Galicia, with his mum and older sister. There, Elvira ran Bar Triana and her son played football, leaving for Celta Vigo at 13, the first of 10 clubs across three countries that finally brought him here again, to where it all began.
