“The truth is, I don’t know how many interviews I’ve had since the book came out -the last week of March-,” says Dani Benítez. The former Granada CF player (2009-2014) is once again a protagonist in the media, this time due to the publication of his biography: ‘I tell my story’, by Aliar Ediciones. «I have always given interviews to everyone, I did it as a player, and also after my suspension. However, I didn’t always feel like the interviews reflected my intention. Sometimes it was the headline, other times the way the answers were written. Also profiles about me from journalists who had never even spoken to me. I understand that the business of journalism works like this, the headline sells and it is necessary, but sometimes I think that they have not been fair to me, and that has caused an image of me that is not – “you can see them yourself,” he refers. to the journalist. That’s why this book, which coincides with the call of Héctor García, the journalist with whom I wrote my biography. Héctor called me, we talked about what had happened in an interview and that’s when we started writing,” says Dani about the origin of this book.
The process was as follows, as Dani explains: «Héctor and I have made many video calls, also a weekend together in Granada. But it has not been through interviews, that is, the classic question-answer. No, it was a talk between two people to travel to my past, to tell everything. The good and the bad, because the bad has been and is very important in my life. That also makes me who I am. I call it ‘The Masters of my life’.
Go ahead or not
In the process of working on the book, there were also moments of doubt, such as the break for a couple of months last summer. “Because? Well, it’s not easy to open up and tell things. Doubts arise and also, why not say it, a certain vertigo. But I convinced myself that I had to move on, and here we are. The truth is, I am very happy with the book. From the beginning, Héctor pointed out to me that making the book could be important for me, to generate a positive message for people. And it is true that it is happening. The other day, without going any further, in training (Dani plays for Arenas de Armilla, in Tercera REFF), a lady approached me. «Hello Dani, can I ask you a favor?, she told me. Of course yes, I replied. I always like to be close to people, I also did it as a Granada player. «My son, who lives in Barcelona, wants you to sign the book. He has always followed you and for him it is something very important,” the woman told me with tremendous affection. I have also been invited by city councils in the province of Granada so that I can go and give talks to the kids from various teams. And I will participate in more activities if people call me. That’s the most important thing for me. I want the book to be a positive message for people who are having a hard time. A very clear message: you can get ahead. But sometimes you can’t do it alone, you also need help. And there you have to be with the person you have at your side.
This is how the book writes…
Knowing the reason for his biography and what the work has been like “for a year: we started in February 2023 and finished in February 2024”, it is important to know some of the most important passages in Dani’s life through his words in the book. Beyond the interviews, as the former player points out, take command of his words.
The promise kept to his mother
Dani Benítez lost his mother very young (in 2011) and when he was moving to the first division for Granada CF. She always had a dream, as she says in the book. «The day you debut in First Division, I will go to the box to see you with a huge hat. The biggest of all so that everyone can see me in the box and know that I am mother Dani. When she achieved promotion to the first division in the summer of 2011, her first was for her, as she says in the book: «I have kept my promise, mom. Really, I am here for her. She is gone, but I know that she has taken me to the goal: the First. She has taken care of me and protected me from above in the most difficult moments.
The bottle to Clos Gómez
We go back to 2012. Granada was facing relegation against Real Madrid on the penultimate matchday of the League. The Andalusian team took the lead with a goal from Franco Jara, but Clos Gómez signaled a penalty in favor of the whites and a goal in stoppage time gave Real Madrid the three points. Decisions that provoked protests from the Granada players, which ended with the expulsion of two of them, and Dani Benítez hitting the referee with a bottle. A moment that he narrates like this in his biography: «We knew that he could whistle at us badly, but he has whistled everything against us. We had never had arbitration like this in First Division. I approach the group around the referee. I yell at him about everything. I insult him. We have a lot at stake… I have a bottle of an isotonic drink in my hand and, without thinking, I throw it. I want to hit the referee. I make an arched shot, like a free throw to the basket, trying to get the bottle to reach it, but I don’t see if I hit it. I also don’t know if anyone has seen me throw it. I move away from the huddle and see Mourinho nod to me to the right, in the direction of the locker room. Mourinho did see me, and, because of his gesture, I was also right. I get a little overwhelmed, but I don’t regret what I’ve done. He deserves it for his refereeing. He has gone for us.
The biggest mistake in a night of lack of control
A positive for cocaine ended Dani Benítez’s career. It was a night in February 2014, at a house party and in which he lost control in a life that was already chaotic: «—What’s wrong with you, Dani? —one of my friends also asks me to take me back to the real world. I don’t think he needs me to tell him what’s wrong, he just needs to see me.
“I have to go to training and I’m in shit, man,” I tell him.
He nods his head to agree with me. But he presents me with a quick remedy for my drunkenness. -Come on. Take one of these and see how it goes away — he tells me while he prepares some lines of cocaine on top of my bathroom sink.
I get into the car without having slept at all, but very alert. My friend was right. The drunkenness I was carrying has passed. I drive towards the sports city. I hope there is no control because if they do it to me, the police officer will probably hallucinate. I park the car, change and go out to train. “I am still in the last steps of recovery from the last of the many injuries I have, but I feel good.”
Two days after that moment, Dani tested positive for cocaine in an anti-doping test, in the match against Real Betis. The positive result was announced a month later, with a two-year ban as punishment.
Darkness after positive for cocaine
Dani Benítez returned to his home, Mallorca, with a two-year ban. Without football, but also without a clear future after a car rental business in Mallorca will disappear. Surely, the worst moments of his life as he tells in the book:
«I have brought with me from Granada the darkness in which I have lived for a long time. I barely pass by the business. I don’t want to know anything about the world, not even about my wife and my daughter. I see them very little, so I distance myself more and more from them. I stay at home almost all the time. I drink a lot of alcohol and do drugs. I had not consumed before the positive, but now they are a refuge for me. Sometimes I do it with friends who come to my house, but other times alone. Every day is the same for me. I just want that and darkness. I like to have the blinds drawn, like I did in Granada. Why worry about what’s outside. I have nothing to gain there anymore. “I have lost everything I had in a very short time.”
Feeling like a footballer again after the sanction
It was difficult for him to play football again after a one-day transfer to Huesca – he also tells what it was like on that day and that moment – and an injury at Alcorcón. He found a place to play football again at Racing de Ferrol, a team to which Dani Benítez will always be eternally grateful. And there, after hard moments, I felt like a player again: «It’s November 2, we play (Ferrol) against Osasuna’s second team. Osasuna was the team that wanted to hire me several years ago. Now, however, I’m going to play against the second team. The twists and turns of life.
They take the lead, 1-0. We cannot lose against Osasuna, because we have not won for several days. The team is made to promote, at least that’s what they want and I need it too. A ball falls to me, on the edge of the area, and I hit it with my left leg. The ball goes inside. Yes, it’s a goal. My first goal in almost three years. I had forgotten the sensations of scoring a goal. My colleagues congratulate me. I think I have definitely returned to football, because a goal changes your life.
A new life in Granada
He left Granada in 2014 after testing positive. Almost fleeing the city, with the idea of never returning. But in his personal reconstruction, there is also reconciliation with Granada and its people. A place where he has recovered his daughter Candela and has formed a solid family. «Since I returned to Granada I am happy. Happier than I’ve ever been here. The people I have met also help a lot. People who help me without expecting anything in return. It hasn’t happened to me many times before in Granada, except for my circle of friends, who have always been and still are there. “A very important person for me is Pepe.”
