A fan from Santiago in Chile has been a diehard fan since 2004, and has travelled to Spain and the UK to cheer on the Submarine
Sebastián Maldonado has been a Villarreal fan for more than 20 years, despite living in Santiago in Chile. He fell in love with the Submarine in 2004, when Manuel Pellegrini joined the club: “The good season the team were having reached the news in Chile and they started to show the games. I have various memories of that great campaign, when we finished third in LaLiga and reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Cup.”
The fan is a professor of business and engineering at the University of Chile, and was born in Arica, a city in the north of the South American country. “Having being born in a small town and being a childhood fan of a local team (San Marcos de Arica), Villarreal are a team that make you dream that you can achieve great things and get excited about your local side. They don’t only get excellent results, but they also play very well, in a creative and offensive style,” says the Chilean fan.
His passion for Villarreal led to him visiting Spain for the first time in August 2010, when he made the most of his visit to stop in Vila-real and get a photo outside the Estadio de la Cerámica. In 2012, he went back to cheer on the Yellows against Sevilla at the Sánchez-Pizjuan and in 2014, his dream came true and he saw the Submarine at home against RC Celta. A year later, in 2015, he also watched the Emirates Cup live with Villarreal taking part in London.
He highlights that some of his favourite players from his time supporting the clubs are Marcos Senna, Bruno Soriano and Santi Cazorla. However, if he had to pick one, he says it would be Juan Pablo Sorín: “He may not have been the biggest star in the team, but he showed the fighting spirit from South America and the passion needed to win. I remember that great game in 2005 where he scored against Atlético de Madrid in the closing stages.”
Here at Villarreal CF, through the ‘Yellows Around the World’ series, we tell the stories of some of the Submarine’s biggest international fans.
