Quini: A Tale of Kidnap, Ransom and Forgiveness in Barcelona

 Quini at the Camp Nou in 1981, the year he was kidnapped in an ordeal that lasted for 25 days. Photograph: Alain de Martignac/Icon Sport via Getty Images
Quini at the Camp Nou in 1981, the year he was kidnapped in an ordeal that lasted for 25 days. Photograph: Alain de Martignac/Icon Sport via Getty Images
TT

Quini: A Tale of Kidnap, Ransom and Forgiveness in Barcelona

 Quini at the Camp Nou in 1981, the year he was kidnapped in an ordeal that lasted for 25 days. Photograph: Alain de Martignac/Icon Sport via Getty Images
Quini at the Camp Nou in 1981, the year he was kidnapped in an ordeal that lasted for 25 days. Photograph: Alain de Martignac/Icon Sport via Getty Images

Enrique Castro, ‘Quini’, left the Camp Nou, drove home, set the video to record the highlights of the night’s games, got back into the car and headed to the airport. It was 1 March 1981, and Spain’s top scorer at the time, who passed away on Tuesday after a sudden heart attack aged 68, had just scored two more goals and was going to collect his wife and children, who were flying back into Barcelona from Asturias. It is there, at Sporting Gijón’s El Molinón ground, that his body lies in rest and where the funeral was held on Wednesday, a stadium that will now carry his name, but his loss was felt all over Spain.

As the tributes came, it was not just about a wonderful footballer who was the top scorer in Spain’s first division five times, plus twice more in the second; a striker who played for Spain, Barcelona and Sporting, but a man who was universally admired; warm, generous and kind, with time for everyone. He had been diagnosed with cancer and lost his brother, a goalkeeper at Sporting, when he died saving an English boy from drowning, but Quini overcame both, guiding kids who came through at Sporting. The tribute paid to him by David Villa, in which Villa apologised for never being a better striker than the man who said he would be when he was just a small boy, is particularly heartbreaking.

What happened in March 1981, though, may be the most telling portrait of all. On the way to the airport that night, Quini pulled in to a petrol station on Plaça de Comas; a DKW van, its number plate M9955AX stolen from a Seat, pulled in behind him and two men got out. Eduardo and Fernando walked slowly up to Quini, showing him a rusty Colt 45, and whispered: “Not a word: get in.” They climbed in alongside him and as he pulled away, gun pressed into his neck, the van followed his Ford Granada towards Les Corts, where he was made to get out and climb into the back of the van. The following day, the police found his car abandoned with the doors still open. By then Quini, head covered with a hood, had long since been imprisoned in an improvised cell under the floor in a lock-up in Zaragoza. It measured barely a metre and a half.

The kidnapping lasted 25 days. The three men who took Quini were on the dole and desperate. They had slept rough on the hill of Montjuic as they planned the kidnapping, and when police finally liberated Quini, a magazine article on him was among the things they found. Yet the planning was far from perfect. They demanded a ransom for Quini’s return but had not agreed on how big it should be, eventually settling on 100m pesetas. During one telephone conversation they began making demands over how the 10m should be paid – in used, non-consecutive bills – only to be asked: “Excuse me? Didn’t you ask for 100 million?”

“Oh,” came the reply, “yeah, the 100 million, that’s right. Erm, well, how much have you got ready for us?”

“100 million.”

“Right, 100 million. That’s what I meant.”

The kidnappers also had no idea how to arrange for the ransom money to be delivered. No account had been set up – Barcelona had to do that for them – and they had no idea how to make good their escape. They did not have the phone number of the club, their president, any directors or players. Quini was the one who suggested that they phone his wife at home – and the one who gave them the number. Every time a suggestion was made, they panicked and feared a bluff and changed their minds constantly over who should deliver the ransom, eventually settling on the Barcelona captain Alexanko.

That did not go to plan either. Followed by police motorcyclists, Alexanko was sent on a long and ultimately pointless journey from Barcelona into Girona and towards the French border, where the journey was aborted when it dawned on Spanish police that they had not contemplated being forced out of the country and had not cleared anything with their French counterparts.

The kidnappers made the occasional threat, even though one of them promised Quini that nothing would happen to him, adding: “I’m even a Barcelona fan.” At one stage, they even complained that Quini was costing them a fortune in sandwiches, to which his wife, María Nieves, snapped: “You kidnapped a sportsman for god’s sake, next time kidnap a Hare Krishna.” They were kids, amateurs, and they were scared, but that did not diminish the fear and the impact on Barcelona was enormous.

Bernd Schuster had refused to play the first game after the kidnapping, against Atlético Madrid, saying: “As well as legs, I have a heart.” Barcelona’s directors lied to Schuster, telling him they had had good news on Quini to try to encourage him to play but, demoralised, they lost 1-0. They lost three of the next four, drawing once. “For 25 days we didn’t win a game,” recalled Quini’s team-mate Charly Rexach. “It was impossible to concentrate on football. The league slipped out of our hands.”

Eventually, the police were tipped off about the van outside the Zaragoza lock-up where he was being held. Specialists were called in, carrying Magnum revolvers. When one policeman kicked the metal shutter, his foot went straight through it, getting stuck. One of the kidnappers was cooking an egg on a butane stove. Guns pointed at his face, he gestured silently at the floor. The trap door was opened, a policeman wriggled through into the small, damp space below. Quini, unshaven, dirty and grey, had heard the noise and was hiding under his mattress, shaking. “Quini?” came the voice. “Quini, I’m a policeman. I’m here to rescue you.”

Barcelona had a game four days later. “I want to play on Sunday,” Quini told them, but he was not allowed; in his absence, they lost 3-0 to Real Madrid. He later scored twice in the Copa del Rey final against his former club Sporting. He had a kickabout with the police after he attended one of their games on Montjuïc. The kidnappers were sentenced to 10 years in prison and ordered to pay him 5m pesetas. He refused the money and refused to press charges. “It wasn’t that uncomfortable, if you knew how to move into the right position,” he said. “One day they brought me down a copy of Marca so that I could see the football results and in the end they gave me a television and everything. And a chess set. I played on my own, but I like playing on my own.

“My kidnappers are good people who did me no harm; I forgive them,” Quini said, which said it all.

The Guardian Sport



Sinner, Berrettini Lift Italy Past Australia and Back to the Davis Cup Final

Italy's Jannik Sinner returns the ball against Australia's Alex de Minaur during the Davis Cup semifinal at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall in Malaga, southern Spain, on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Italy's Jannik Sinner returns the ball against Australia's Alex de Minaur during the Davis Cup semifinal at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall in Malaga, southern Spain, on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
TT

Sinner, Berrettini Lift Italy Past Australia and Back to the Davis Cup Final

Italy's Jannik Sinner returns the ball against Australia's Alex de Minaur during the Davis Cup semifinal at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall in Malaga, southern Spain, on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Italy's Jannik Sinner returns the ball against Australia's Alex de Minaur during the Davis Cup semifinal at the Martin Carpena Sports Hall in Malaga, southern Spain, on Saturday, Nov. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)

Top-ranked Jannik Sinner and Matteo Berrettini won matches Saturday in front of a supportive crowd to lift defending champion Italy past Australia 2-0 and back into the Davis Cup final.

Sinner extended his tour-level winning streak to 24 singles sets in a row by beating No. 9 Alex de Minaur 6-3, 6-4 after Berrettini came back to defeat Thanasi Kokkinakis 6-7 (6), 6-3, 7-5, The Associated Press reported.
“Hopefully this can give us confidence for tomorrow,” said Sinner, now 9-0 against de Minaur.
Italy will meet first-time finalist Netherlands on Sunday for the title. The Dutch followed up their victory over Rafael Nadal and Spain in the quarterfinals by eliminating Germany in the semifinals on Friday.
Italy, which got past Australia in last year's final, is trying to become the first country to win the Davis Cup twice in a row since the Czech Republic in 2012 and 2013. Italy’s women won the Billie Jean King Cup by defeating Slovakia in Malaga on Wednesday.
The much shorter trip for Italian fans than Australians meant the 9,200-seat arena sounded like a home environment Saturday for Berrettini, with repeated chants of “I-ta-lia!” or “Ole, ole, ole, ole! Matte’! Matte’!” amplified by megaphones and accompanied by drums and trumpets. Chair umpire James Keothavong repeatedly asked spectators to stop whistling as Kokkinakis was serving.
“We're in Spain,” Kokkinakis said, “but it felt like we were in Italy.”
Sinner received the same sort of backing, of course, although he might not have needed as much with the way he has played all year, including taking the title at the ATP Finals last weekend.
“It's an honor, it's a pleasure, to have Jannik with us,” Italian captain Filippo Volandri said.
The biggest suspense Saturday on the indoor hard court at the Palacio de Deportes Jose Maria Martina Carpena in southern Spain came in Berrettini vs. Kokkinakis.
Berrettini, the runner-up at Wimbledon in 2021, needed to put aside the way he gave away the opening set, wasting three chances to finish it, and managed to do just that. He grabbed the last three games of the match, breaking to lead 6-5, then closing it out with his 14th ace after 2 hours, 44 minutes.
The big-hitting Berrettini has been ranked as high as No. 6 and is currently No. 35 after missing chunks of time the past two seasons because of injuries or illness. He sat out two of this year’s four major tournaments and lost in the second round at each of the other two.
But when healthy, he is among the world’s top tennis players, capable of speedy serves and booming forehands. He was in control for much of the match against No. 77 Kokkinakis, who was the 2022 Australian Open men’s doubles champion with Nick Kyrgios and helped his country get past the United States in the quarterfinals Thursday.
Berrettini earned the first break to lead 6-5 in the opening set and was a point away while serving at 40-30. Kokkinakis saved that via a 21-stroke exchange that ended with Berrettini sending a forehand long, then ended up breaking back when the Italian missed again off that wing.
Then, ahead 6-4 in the tiebreaker, Berrettini had two more opportunities to own the set. But Kokkinakis — who saved four match points against Ben Shelton in the quarterfinals — saved one with a gutsy down-the-line backhand passing winner and the other with a 131 mph (212 kph) ace, part of a four-point run to close that set.
“It wasn’t easy to digest ... because I had so many chances,” Berrettini said.