• Chronicle: Athletic sinks Barcelona, ​​unhinges Leo Messi and wins the Utopia Super Cup

  • News Leo Messi attacks Asier Villalibre and receives the first expulsion with FC Barcelona

Asier Villalibre

always has the rictus of being at the bus stop at seven thirty in the morning waiting for the 47 to arrive so as not to be late for the workshop.

No matter the situation, it matters little that the game is about to start or that it has already finished and the prize is a title.

Under that bushy 'hipster' beard that has become his hallmark, the smile rarely appears.

Like that historical 'meme' from when the word 'meme' did not yet exist in which the same photo of

Chuck Norris

was seen several times

with different signs: Chuck Norris happy, Chuck Norris sad, Chuck Norris angry ...

Villalibre is impassive.

It is when

Messi

attacks him without coming to mind in the last minute of extra time and it is when he uncorks the celebration trumpet in hand.

He only runs wild to celebrate that he has scored the goal that forces extra time and keeps Athletic's hope of winning the Super Cup alive.

Williams

was going to do the rest, but first, the 'Buffalo', the nickname given to him in Lezama for how he devastated the fields of Euskadi with his power as if they were Serengeti meadows, corresponded to the expectations that for so long have been placed on him: to be Athletic's '9'.

Well, better written, the '20'.

Because, retired

Aduriz

, he decided to inherit his number, abstracted from the pressure that it entailed and from the inevitable comparisons that such a number would multiply.

"It is a lot of weight, but just as children in the street wear the '20' for Aritz, I do it too," he explained with his overflowing naturalness.

The same one that led him to comment on the action with Messi in the final in a peculiar way: "It seemed like clear aggression to me. I put a body on him so that he doesn't go forward and he, well, has 'angry'. It's normal , impotence, nothing happens. "

A Villalibre, written remains, he had been waiting for years.

Since in the 2015/16 season, at the age of 18, Valverde offered him the alternative.

In his first two games he distributed two assists in a total of 18 minutes.

Things, however, were not going to be as easy as they seemed.

The following season he went on loan to Valladolid, in the Second

Division

, where

Jaime Mata

blocked his progression with goals.

He finished the course in Lorca and things were not better for him.

In 2018 he returned to the subsidiary, but his 23 goals did not serve him to finish convincing

Garitano

.

Last season he ended up staying in the squad despite the fact that the club preferred to give him up and did not enjoy minutes until the second round.

It was worth waiting for his explosion, now 23 years old.

Among other things, because Villalibre had to triumph yes or yes.

With Aduriz now retired, there were no more strikers to trust aside from Williams, with a very different profile from that of the Gernika footballer.

This season he has already had three goals (two in the League and the one in the Super Cup final) despite having started only six times and already shows that he will be a trusted striker for Athletic in the coming years.

And then, of course, there is the trumpet thing.

Everything was born from the Orsai group that one day

De Marcos, Vesga, Balenziaga

and

Lekue

decided to form

.

"We got very tired looking for a singer in the dressing room and in the end Villalibre signed up to play the trumpet and sing," Lekue explained to this newspaper a few months ago.

The best friend of 'Búfalo' plays the drums on an electro-charanga and one day, when accompanying him to a rehearsal, the trumpet of another member of the group caught his attention.

He befriended the trumpeter and got down to business learning to play it.

It is not the first time he has been seen with her.

Last season, after getting a pass to the Cup final in Granada, he already started playing it to inaugurate the celebration.

He did it in the privacy of the locker room, but his teammates spread the video on social networks and it went viral.

In Seville, this Sunday, he did it in the center of the field and before the live television cameras.

On the horizon, a promise made months ago: to give a concert with his teammates from Orsai in San Mamés if Athletic wins the pending Cup final against Real.

"Fixed," he says, undeterred.

Like Chuck Norris.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

Know more

  • Spain Supercup

  • Athletic Bilbao

  • FC Barcelona

FútbolKoeman and the "hope" that Messi will play the final of the Super Cup against Athletic

SoccerThe amazing metamorphosis of Athletic super champion

SoccerFrom Arabia to Al-Andalus, the change of the Super Cup in the year of the Covid

See links of interest

  • Coronavirus Spain

  • Work calendar

  • Napoli - Fiorentina

  • Aston Villa - Everton

  • Sheffield United - Tottenham Hotspur

  • Crotone - Benevento

  • The final of the Super Cup, live: Barcelona - Athletic