25-year-old star Carlos Soler is the latest Spanish player to attract a queue of suitors from the Premier League’s elite clubs.
Already the beating heart of the Valencia midfield, the young, affable, born and bred Valenciano currently has a buy-out clause of 150m euros (£125m).
But with just about 14 months on his current deal and not much progress made on contract extension talks, a move from the cash-strapped club from Spain’s third city looks more likely by the day if they are to avoid losing him for free at the end of next season.
So who is Carlos Soler?
Born and raised in the city, Soler has been at Valencia for the past 18 years, signing for the academy at age seven after being spotted kicking the ball around on soil pitches during half-time of matches involving the senior sides at his local club, Bonrepos. He wanted the ball for himself so badly that he refused to join a team. But his grandad, Rafael, promised him a Game Boy if he registered for one, which he duly did.
Originally a striker who would regularly bang in about 100 goals a season in the junior ranks, it was as a midfielder that Valencia saw his real potential. Even when he played with footballers three years older than him, as he was asked to do often, he was never out of place.
It was his grandfather, who passed away two months ago, who was his first major influence, taking time off work to ferry him around to training and to matches from the age of about seven, right up until Carlos obtained his driving licence when he was 18.
“My parents worked, as in fact he did, but he took the afternoons off to take me while my grandmother would make my afternoon snack to give me the strength to do my best in training,” he says.
“If it hadn’t been for him I would have had to find other ways and he was always there for me.”
“His joy was always that I would play for Valencia and he lived to see that. He was always a pillar of strength for me, as were my father and my brother. And you know what? We take for granted that amount of time given to you as a kid by the people around you and we shouldn’t.”
Today, Soler keeps his feet firmly on the ground, maintaining a close friendship with those he has known since his school days.
“There are around five of them who I have known since I was seven or eight years old and who I still go on holiday with, go out to eat and watch football with,” he adds.
“They have helped maintain me in the elite because at the end of the day it is important that we remember where we came from, and who we are.”
