count for gilet that Javi Guerra’s goal against Valladolid It was celebrated with the same passion and madness as Iniesta’s in the World Cup final from South Africa. They are not exaggerating in this Valencian town, located in the interior, near Sagunto and which has grown to 3,800 inhabitants after the pandemic. Among his locals, one of the heroes of the salvation of Valencia stands out. The ‘xic del poble’, boasts with pride gilet when he has to refer to the kid who has located this population in the map.
In a quiet town, where time passes slowly, partly because of its famous Espíritu Santo Monastery, Javi Guerra has led the revolution. His goal and irruption with the first team have unleashed ‘Guerramanía’ and also ‘Valenciamanía’ in Gilet. In the soccer field of Maladicha, all the children, the 200 that make up the school, want to be Javi Guerra. They don’t think about Vinicius, Griezmann or Lewandowski. There he commands the midfielder Che, this season with the ’36 ′ on his back and recently renewed by Valencia until 2027.
Javi Guerra lives in Gilet, in the center of town. There is not a day that goes by in which several children gather at the door of his house to touch him the bell or they find him walking to ask him for a photo. The midfielder always puts on a good face. And more with his countrymen, who are looking forward to seeing how the evolution of a boy continues “shy and with his head in place”. Guerra has never played soccer in the town square. Nor on the street, like hundreds of children. But that hasn’t stopped him from being a loving and well-liked guy in his town.
“We always thought that Javi would arrive. I remember the concern we had when he left Villarreal to know where he would go. In the end, the jump that gave us so much fear, turned out wonderfully. Javi has put Gilet on the map. It is a luxury for us to have an illustrious neighbor like him. For those of us who are pro Valencianists, he has benefited us a lot. Valencia is not going through his best years and the truth is that having a player in Valencia who is from your town makes the children belong to Valencia again. The easy thing is to be from Madrid or Barça. Now they have that illusion again for being Valencian ”, he affirms to AS Salva Costa, mayor of Gilet. The first mayor is finalizing the recognitions and tributes that he wants to do to the player in the coming weeks. “It is the moment to think about the tributes and receive it at the Town Hall with all honors. He is a very flat neighbor and now that he is on the crest he has normalized everything ”, Salva Costa qualifies.
Javi Guerra, as recounted by the mayor, has awakened the feeling of belonging to Valencia in the town. Gilet has had a Valencian supporters club since 2002. The league title that the Che team won in Malaga that year made many fans, already season ticket holders, take a step forward to create this organization, framed within the Agrupació. In its origins, the Gilet rock came to have a hundred members. They even got together to watch the games at a venue and perform different acts. But lean times came at Valencia and the rock was almost forgotten. A long time later, the Cup final won against Barcelona in 2019 reactivated Gilet’s most faithful followers. But it has been Javi Guerra who has really reawakened interest in being part of a rock that has already started the bureaucratic procedures to name it after the youth squad. “We want our club to be called Peña Valencianista de Gilet Javi Guerra”, Miguel Domínguez, president of the supporters club, proudly admits. “We are 91 members and everyone wants to get on this boom. I have been a partner and shareholder of Valencia for many years. I always go to Mestalla and before that the goals of Madrid and Barça were celebrated. The same thing happened here, but now it has been noticed since Javi Guerra has been here. His goal against Valladolid was crazy in the town, ”says Miguel Domínguez, president of the Gilet supporters club.
Football comes from Javi Guerra’s cradle. His grandfather was his great support during his beginnings, the person who accompanied him to each training session. His father also played soccer. He toured various teams in the province of Valencia and He became a soldier at the Mestalla. Apart from Gilet, there is another very close town that also marked Javi Guerra a lot. In Puçol, the midfielder gave his first kicks to the ball. He was only four years old, the ball was almost bigger than him, and Guerra was already glued to the ball. His first team was Puçol, where his father played. Javi, still not of age to compete, was already the best of his generation. Even in the club they had to make a “trap” for him to play in the prebenjamín, with children one or two years older than him. Curiously, Javi gave his first passes and scored his first goals in the Puçol stadium, on the pitch Pep Claramunt, legend of the town and historic Valencia player.
“His arrival at Valencia has not surprised me. I had Javi in my first year as a coach and he had things that no one else had. I’ve been training for 16 years and I’ve seen thousands of kids and he looked different things. If he didn’t come, I don’t know who was going to. At four or five years old, hitting the ball was brutal. He took many penalties outside of the power he had. He also had the measure of the crossbar taken when we played games. All he hit was a goal. He made passes and things that were unthinkable for his age. I have followed him and when I was little I scored many more goals, although it was always more to distribute. The good thing about him is that he has loved soccer since he was little. His father played soccer and has instilled in him sports and values. Javi has respected them. He has always taken it very seriously, in each category, ”says Josep Bosch, the first coach Guerra had.
That coach, currently at Puçol and the son of the current president, boasts that the only time he has beaten Valencia has been with Javi in the rojiblanco team. In fact, in Paterna, after a Guerra exhibition when he was only four years old, they already asked several scouts from the club che for him. “It highlighted where we were going to play. He gave the feeling that he had all the faculties to arrive, football and mentally. They have given him the opportunity at a difficult time and they, Javi Guerra, Diego López and Alberto Marí, have spoken”, says Bosch. The penalty for the first Guerra coach is that that boy, with a special gift, did not last very long in Puçol. His father began to collaborate with Villarreal and Javi packed his bags, although he never left aside his native Gilet or Puçol, the cradle that saw him born in football.