📍Fuentealbilla, Albacete, Spain
1984 – 1996“Andrés Iniesta Luján was born in May 1984 in Fuentealbilla, a small farming village of about two thousand people on the high plains of Albacete, in Castilla-La Mancha. His father, José Antonio, worked as a bricklayer, and his mother, Mari, worked in the family's bar in the village, run by her family, the Lujáns. The village was a quiet place of whitewashed houses, fields and vineyards, and Andrés grew up kicking a ball in its streets and on its small pitch. He was a quiet, shy boy, but on the pitch he was extraordinary, and at about eight he joined the youth teams of Albacete. At a youth tournament in 1996, Barcelona scouts saw him, and that September, when he was twelve, his parents drove him to Barcelona in the family's dark blue Ford Orion to join La Masia. When they left him there, he could not stop crying, and he has called it the worst day of his life, a feeling of abandonment and loss. His parents visited as often as they could, and he would sleep in their bed when they came. He gradually settled, and made his first-team debut in 2002. Playing alongside Xavi in midfield, he won nine league titles and four Champions Leagues with Barcelona, and scored the winning goal in the 2010 World Cup final for Spain. Fuentealbilla is enormously proud of him: he has invested in the village, where his family runs a winery. At his farewell to Barcelona he said his tears were those of the boy from Fuentealbilla who had dreamed of being a footballer.”
🗺️ Approximate location today
📍 Street view today