Ayoze Pérez does like a nice cup of tea. One November day last season, in the hours before Real Betis played Mallorca, a friend of his had a feeling. "He said to me: 'You're going to score - and as the game is at teatime, you should celebrate by drinking one,'" the former Newcastle and Leicester forward, now at Villarreal, explains. "I thought: 'Well, at least it's original.' It's something fun, different." Something his too, a challenge to be met. And so there he was a little after half past five lifting a cup to his lips, the year of his life under way.
The following week, in the derby against Sevilla, Pérez did it again. Then again and again. Seven more times last season and 10 this, in nine games. He did it the first time he played for Spain and the most recent time as well, in Copenhagen on Friday, success measured in tea: a symbol of a journey which brings him back to where it all began.
Tonight Spain face Switzerland at the Heliodoro in Santa Cruz. Home of CD Tenerife and his home too, the last time Pérez played there was against Córdoba in the second division in May 2014.
"This means a lot to me; it's a moment I dreamed of as a kid. To go back after so many years and with the national team is special," he says, sitting in a corner of the federation's Las Rozas HQ. "I never imagined playing for Spain in Tenerife." Twelve months ago, few imagined him doing so at all yet he arrives as a European champion, the game's top-scoring Spaniard.
Born and raised on the island, Pérez helped take Tenerife to the second division, where he was their top scorer, but has not been back to the club since he set off for England a decade ago.
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