There will be no July 14 of San Fermín or "Pobre de mí". On the last day of San Fermin in 2019, a mass of Miura crashed Rafael against the tables of the bullring in Pamplona. The python cracked his rib cage end to end. He was made a mess of pneumothorax,Lung bruises, fractures of the vertebrae and broken ribs -thirteen, specifically- dragging an overwhelming medical part that could be summarized as follows: I live by a miracle. The last Thoraco-abdominal-pelvic CT came on April 29, exactly nine and a half months after the afternoon he was born again. "Conclusion: Multiple rib fractures," says the report, referring to the fourth right rib and numbers 9, 10, and 11 of the left rib. Still unhealed. The pain that sabotages him daily on both sides is like a notch in his survival revolver. "I have two punctures on the left costal part, up to the pit of the stomach, and on the right side that do not go away. They are stronger when I do twists of the waist, abdominals or I take a pronounced weight, but they are always with me. I don't know if they will disappear or stay forever, but I was so close to dying that learning to live with pain is bearable.The most important thing is that it will not limit my life as a bullfighter, "he says, recalling the fight to rebuild in time for the reappearance that the dark pandemic thwarted on April 13 in Arles (France).

As soon as he woke up with his chest full of tubes in the intensive care unit of the Hospital Complex of Navarra, Rafaelillo unknowingly longed for that date: "In the ICU I was clear that my career could not end like this. I was afraid of the consequences and the time It would take me a long time to recover. I didn't know if I could come back for a last afternoon or if I could make a season, but I refused to let my bullfighting page end like this . When I went out and saw that the recovery was so slow and so expensive, I sank psychically " The flame of bullfighting ignited the fading breath. Miura's bullfight - sixtieth of his career - which would close the Arles Easter Fair as a foothold to put the warrior back on his feet. Juan Bautista dialed his number for the return to the ring: "When I said yes, in December, he had not even picked up the junk. The person was physically touched. He had seven fractures in his ribs, a bruise from three centimeters in the liver, fluid in the pleura, damaged vertebrae and I had not recovered my lung capacity. It was reckless, but it was also what saved me. Rafaelillo came out and rescued the man . "

The December medical report was so scary that it was the last to date. There would be no TCs or reviews until after the reappearance. "I did not want to go to the doctor and that, if the news was not good, it would affect my training or my mind. I had to put myself in front of an animal as if nothing happened, physically or mentally; and that's when I began to overcome the mishap, "says Rafaelillo with a plumb line that is difficult to gloss in the diminutive. "More than a tear of pain and suffering escaped me until I surpassed that threshold of the first months of being in the gym and saw that I couldn't do a push-up, that I grabbed the cape and couldn't turn my waist, that it looked like a trunk. The bet on Arles and the recovery have been a very big victory against myself. "

Although Arles has vanished, the phoenix laurels still crown Rafael's blond hair above the chaos of the coronavirus. "It was a very special afternoon. With Miura, which was my way of showing how I returned after having almost lost my life, Sergio Serrano and a very nice alternative [that of Maxime Solera], in a plaza that, like all France has given so much to me. When he fell, after nine months fighting, I thought it would suit me down. But two days later the sorrow stopped being by profession, he will return, but for the drama we live in . No power accompanying a loved one in his last hours has to be terrible . So all that is not thanking God that my family is fine is being selfish with the human being, "says the Murcian bullfighter from his confinement. He takes advantage to continue training and enjoy his wife and daughters. The oldest, Claudia, fills her with "life and dynamite" with the flights of the capotillo that she alone has learned to rock. Valeria is the little princess who, when she arrives, pampers and kisses her warrior father. "I have two wonderful daughters," she smiles behind the phone.

The long days of quarantine also serve to outline a diffuse tomorrow and think about the hands that will take over his career when bullfighting is reactivated: "I am still without a manager. I am in talks with great professionals who are pending my career, but we are waiting to see what It happens with the pandemic. I want someone to help me stay as and where I want to be in the years that I have a profession. " That place is far from the numbers. In the small flint run circuit that has shaped Rafaelillo's career, it is difficult to be remembered in numbers. "I kill a type of bull that does not always allow you to succeed and I have lost many important ears with the sword," says the Murcian with a Homeric resume, told from feat to feat. "I am very clear about the place I occupy in bullfighting: I fight so that tomorrow I will be remembered for what I was able to do to those bulls."

And the mind flies alone to the war dance with Injuriado that closed the San Isidro of 2015. Rafael dominating that Miureña onslaught that took half a foot of stature with an implausible caress. "I don't have the photo through the Puerta Grande, but I remember going around the ring and seeing that there were people excited with me, also crying with the message I had given." Without steel, that afternoon was the man who whispered to the miuras in Madrid. His springboard with France and Pamplona, ​​who saw him be born again. "Now I love her more than ever. I have always identified with Pamplona. I like her personality and the philosophy of the Casa de la Misericordia in hiring, which is extraordinary. I have lived very important afternoons: from the two big doors with Miura I already the afternoon in which a bull almost biased the life that Doctor Hidalgo and his team saved me. Since that new opportunity, I have carved it in my heart, "he says, wishing for the end of" this nightmare to step on it again " when the sadness of the suspension of San Fermín still flies over.

The measures of phase III of de-escalation, in which bullfighting shows are included, are not encouraging. "You have to keep 9 meters away in the bullring, but not in the bars or the queues of the supermarket. It is nonsense. This government is going to be devastating for bullfighting, but it does not take us by surprise either," says Rafaeillo. That calls for state support as a fundamental pillar to overcome the COVID-19 crisis: "We have to unite and adapt to what comes, but the first that has to lead the way is the Government. We are the second show that generates the most money in Spain and they have to help us by reducing VAT and the square floors. "

The cohesion of the sector is for the Murcian the other prop of the subsistence, although it supposes to go through the ring of the bullfights behind closed doors so as not to leave the year blank: " These are not times to go against but to be all at a . If bullfighting needs it to survive, I wouldn't have to contemplate it, "he says. With the reservations specific to the trinitarian conception of bullfighting, of course. "The magic of bullfighting is the fusion between the public, the bull and the bullfighter. We were excited and we came up with the heat of the public. Even with their demand. How do you get to a final judgment without the fan as a task thermometer? "I imagine it as something very strange and soulless. It would be very sad for me to reappear like this after falling under the wonderful noise of Pamplona."

Rafaelillo will return to bullfighting squeezing it from his own bones. For each muletazo, a feat written to saber will burn in the side. And that return deserves the highest tributes. The last survivor of San Fermín has to return sheltered by thousands of souls given to each set that bleeds him from the chest.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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