El veintiséis de mayo/May 26th

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Photo (from minuto30.com. Click HERE) of Cuadrado's
mother, wife, daughter, and stepsister with him after a game. 
¡Feliz cumpleaños a ... Juan Cuadrado! (1988-)

A professional soccer player from Colombia, Cuadrado now plays for the Italian club Juventus as well as the Colombian national team. He is featured alongside Lionel Messi on the cover of FIFA 2016 in Latin America. Cuadrado was born in Necolí, Colombia, and during his childhood experienced the violence of war (Colombia was going through what is referred to as "The Colombian Conflict," which was first a part of the Cold War (1964-1991) and then a part of the War on Drugs (1991-2016, when a peace deal was signed)). When he was just four years old there was a firefight by his home and he hid under the bed, as his parents instructed him to do. That saved his life, but his father was killed. Cuadrado's mother, now responsible for earning a living (Cuadrado's father had been a truck driver), went to work washing and packing bananas for export in order to support the family (read more, in Spanish, HERE). Always an energetic child who loved kicking a soccer ball, Cuadrado began living with his grandmother at the age of 6 so that he could train while his mother worked. At the age of 12, he moved to Cali with coach Nelson Gallego, who became like a father to him. While many coaches thought Cuadrado too skinny to ever make it big, Gallego believed in him. In 2009, Cuadrado moved to Italy to join Udinse, where he at first did not make much of an impression. Still, at that time he told his mother to stop working in Colombia and come to live with him in Italy, where he would support her after all she had done for him. She and his younger sister María Ángel moved that year. Cuadrado was loaned to Lecce for the 2011-2012 season, and that is when he started turning heads. Married to Melissa Botero since 2016 and devoted to their daughter, Lucía, who was born in November of 2015, Cuadrado says that he loves everything about being a father and takes the responsibility seriously. As he told Colombian journalist Nadyne Millán of El Tiempo in June of 2016:

"Se despierta un amor tan grande por una persona tan pequeña e indefensa... Sé que estaré ahí siempre para protegerla y guiarla por un buen camino, porque los hijos crecen y quieren irse de casa y eso es normal, pero cuando ella lo haga, haya recibido buenas enseñanzas ... Quiero que Lucía conozca de Dios, porque sin Él no somos nada.Y que aprenda a respetar, a amar, a ser amable y alegre y que aprenda a reflejarlo en su vida" (Read the complete interview HERE).

([Being a father] awakes an enormous love for this person who is so small and defenseless. I know that I will always be there to protect her and guide her on the right path, because children grow and want to leave the house, and that is normal, but when she does, I hope that she has been well taught. I want Lucía to know God, because without him we are nothing. And I want her to learn to respect, to love, to be kind and happy, and to learn to reflect God in her life."

See Cuadrado in action on the field and off (where he is both an excellent dancer and a mischievous friend) in this video "10 Curiosidades sobre Juan Guillermo Cuadrado."

For resources for teaching Spanish, Level 1 through AP, CLICK HERE.




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