Rabat- Barcelona have decided to curb the media hype around their recent La Masia graduate Mounir El Haddadi in order for him to concentrate more on playing football than giving interviews.
Yet the Spanish media, which is madly in love with the Barcelona forward, was not easily deterred by the Blaugrana decision and therefore continued to track back the beginnings of the 19-year-old starlet and his family.
Spanish daily newspaper El Mundo conducted an interview with Mounir's father, Mohamed El Haddadi, who left the city of Castillejos (Fnideq) in northern Morocco and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar at 18 years of age with aspirations for a better life in Spain.
"It was a boat we used for fishing. We were 20 people. We took a chance and got to Algeciras," said Mohamed, or Jaime as his friends call him.
As soon as he arrived, Mohamed El Haddadi had to do what most clandestine immigrants do when they first set foot in Spain: stay out of the police’s sight to avoid deportation and start looking for a job.
"They could not hire me because I did not have papers," he said. "I was selling in the streets and in markets away from the police so they would not expel me."
"I arrived in Bilbao where I stayed for four years. I was selling jewelry at the fair. In this city I met a Basque chef," he said.
El Haddadi started working in a ham factory, where he eventually got the opportunity to obtain papers and fix his situation. He became a specialist in Basque cuisine before joining Chef Inaki Euskaldun Ongay in Pozuelo de Alarcon, Madrid.
"I have never seen anything like it. He makes the best barbecue I've ever had, seasoned better than me," said Chef Inaki. "When Barcelona came [interested in Mounir], I recommended him to go there. We had to explain to Jaime what La Masia was," he said.
Mahmoud, Mohammed's assistant and close family friend, remembers Mounir coming to the restaurant where his father worked.
"He was very shy. We always had to ask him what he wanted, forcing him to choose his ice cream, which was what he loved," Mahmoud was quoted as saying by El Mundo.
Mohammed explains that he did not like staying in Barcelona, where his son had moved to join La Masia in 2011. He only spent four months before coming back to "Little Morocco"; a neighborhood in Madrid where the El Haddadi family feels connected to the Muslim community that lives there.
Despite the success of his son, Mohammed did not change. Mounir earns an estimated 150,000 Euro every 12 months. And for every game he plays as a professional he earns 24,000 Euro, meaning that he makes more money in 90 minutes of play than what his father makes in an entire year, just 23,800 Euro.
Mohammed still lives in his small, 70-square meter apartment where up to 14 people live.
"He helps everybody," says his good friend Mahmoud. His former boss Inaki Ongay recalls: "He always asked me for leftovers to take them to a couple who were starving in a field."
Mounir's mother, born in Melilla, worked as a dish washer in a restaurant. Today she looks after Mounir's three brothers.
"Regarding my son I can only say that I am happy and very proud," she said.