Lluis never imagined that someone would take a picture of him celebrating Villarreal winning a trophy alongside his parent
Pascual Bort was born with mobility problems in his legs and at the end of 2020 he broke his hip while he was going into a bar to watch a Villarreal game. The night of 26th May 2021 in Gdansk (Poland) is unforgettable for him and his sun Lluís. They had gone almost a year without seeing each other, as the latter has lived in Palma de Mallorca for the past five years for work reasons. They decided to meet up once more to travel and cheer on the Submarine in the 2020/21 UEFA Europa League final: “My dad was convinced that this year the club was going to be successful.” As well as being an architect, Lluis is also a photographer and never imagined that the moment that he celebrated his childhood team winning a title alongside his father would be immortalized.
Lluís Bort was born in Tales, although all the family on his dad’s side is from Vila-real. He became a ‘groguet’ young, in 1997, when his grandmother took him to ‘El Madrigal’, as the stadium was known then, for the first time. He says he remembers not paying for his ticket, as he was a minor and went under the turnstile. He didn’t have a season ticket until 1998/99, the club’s first in the top flight, when his parents got him one. Because of that, his dad Pascual asked him to take him to the Europa League final: “You’ll take me to Poland, you owe me,” is what he said.
Lluís underlines that he has ‘enormous’ feelings for Villarreal. He says he always lived the club ‘from the inside’, after playing in the academy and also being a ballboy. He also has shirts and sweatshirts from players such as Sergio Ballesteros, Quique Álvarez and Javier López Vallejo. He also has some of Andrés Palop’s gloves. The goalkeeper was one of his childhood heroes, alongside Bruno Soriano and Santi Cazorla. As well as going to home matches, he also cheered on the team away from home at stadiums such as the Camp Nou, the Santiago Bernabéu and Mestalla.
However, he underlines that the photo where he appears alongside his dad at the Gdansk Stadium is his best moment as a Yellow: “It’s a memory with him that I’ll have all my life. It’s unforgettable.”
