Success has many fathers and some of the reasons for West Ham United’s surge are transparent as bubbles: David Moyes, Declan Rice, Jesse Lingard, improved recruitment, prodigious graft. The superstitious may try adding another factor, one that is somewhat niche: the rollout of high-speed broadband in hilltop areas of Spain’s Valencian community.
Consider the facts. West Ham were tenth when they kicked off away to Everton on January 1 yet went into this weekend fourth, having collected more points in 2021 than anyone except Manchester City and Manchester United. They have not stopped surging since beating Everton on New Year’s Day — which was also the first time the wifi was good enough in Castellón de la Plana for Pablo Fornals’s parents to watch their boy in the Premier League live on television.
Coincidence? The engaging, energetic Spaniard laughs. “We live in the mountains in Castellón,” he says. “It’s ten minutes from the city centre so it’s not the richest place. It’s not third world but being in the mountains the connections were a little poorer. That moment when the government put a really good fibre optic in was when my family could watch our games. It was the point when I bought them a big TV.”
Family means so much to Fornals, 25, on whose arm is a tattoo of his grandfather, and knowing that his mum and dad can now see him is “another thing to encourage me”, in a West Ham career that started awkwardly but has burgeoned, his beautifully caressed and angled finish in Monday’s win away to Wolverhampton Wanderers emphasising his growing assurance and importance.
His dad, Vicente, used to drop him off at training at his first club, ACD Benicense, before beginning shifts as a roadsweeper and his mum, Inma, “lives football more than me. She probably doesn’t understand everything, how the game is going, but listening for my name [on TV], she is excited and jumping on the sofa.”
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Speed problems were an issue beyond just broadband during Fornals’s first months with West Ham. Signed for £24 million from Villarreal in 2019, then the second-biggest fee in West Ham’s history, he was a Spain international who starred as his country won that summer’s European Under-21 Championship and had been compared to Andrés Iniesta . . . by none other than Andrés Iniesta.
The Premier League, however, “was a bit of a shock, because I thought I was a good player. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t doing the same as I was in Spain.” The challenge was “the speed, how strong the game is, the things allowed by the referees. It is different in Europe.
“I needed to adjust the speed, my strength. I am a slim boy and football here is a little bit stronger than in Spain. I needed to adjust small things to get myself at the same level.”
He credits Manuel Pellegrini, who bought him, and Moyes, who replaced Pellegrini in December 2019, “for giving me chances to grow and become a better player”, and suggests “there are a lot of Spanish or foreign players who can’t show how good they are here because they don’t have any chances”. Without patience from those managers, he might have joined a list of Spanish talents (from Iago Aspas to José Antonio Reyes to Roberto Soldado to Gaizka Mendieta) who failed to translate La Liga prowess to impact in England.
Yet the credit also belongs to him. In Spain, he was renowned for fusing skill with relentless running and that combination, allied to tactical intelligence, make him very much a Moyes player. He had to win over the Scot, who initially preferred Robert Snodgrass and Manuel Lanzini in Fornals’s favoured inside left and attacking midfield positions. “When he [Moyes] came it was in a moment where I was finding myself with Pellegrini and he put in other players he knew from before,” he recalls. “I just tried to show him I was ready to give the team my experience, my youth, my energy. I tried to convince him I deserved to play. It’s not easy competing with all these really good team-mates, so I always try to give 2,000 per cent.”
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The strike against Wolves demonstrated not only Fornals’s technical quality but the quality of his work off the ball. When West Ham’s attack began, with a pass down the left to Lingard, he was 40 yards out and could be seen shortening his steps to delay his run until a burst at the right moment on to Arthur Masuaku’s cutback. “I always speak to the lads and say if you arrive at the sides, I’m going to try and be at the penalty spot because the ball, mathematically, usually stays around the penalty spot. So I try to be there to catch something. It was a perfect ball from Arthur.”
Movement was one reason for the Iniesta comparisons. “Andrés said in an interview he could watch me as a new Iniesta,” he says. “Obviously our careers are going to be so different, but for a player like Andrés to say that is unbelievable. It is a big responsibility for a young guy to hear you are going to be the next Andrés Iniesta, when Iniesta is the guy who gave Spain its first World Cup. It’s not just one player — it’s Andrés Iniesta!”
Another Spanish midfield genius is an inspiration: Santi Cazorla, a former team-mate at Villarreal, who gave advice on how to transition to the Premier League. “One or two weeks ago I was speaking with Santi,” Fornals says. “He is now in Qatar [at Al Sadd, managed by Xavi] and still playing really well. He’s a proper baller.
“You think someone has had a legacy . . . Villarreal is a small place but is a great team. Chinese people, English people, [tourists] from everywhere [visit] and we were training on our training pitch when everyone started to sing, ‘Oh, Santi Cazorla.’ It doesn’t matter where people are from, there is support for Santi that is more than [about] football. The love people have for him is amazing.”
Is there an ambition to add to his two Spain caps, the last of which was in 2018?
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“Not really,” he says with disarming honesty. “I’d love to play but for me and people who are not playing in European competition, we have to give more than everyone else so to get there I have to improve here at my team and give a little bit more.”
Of course, he could be in European competition himself, and even the Champions League, should West Ham finish strongly. He admits the club have “started to dream” and contrasts this campaign with his first at the club, and last at Villarreal, both involving relegation battles. “They were tough seasons,” he says. “So I’m just trying to enjoy the good moments, because of the bad moments I had in my life. And life is always like this. It is impossible to be happy for a long time, so we have to enjoy these moments as a player, as a coach, as a West Ham fan.”
Popular inside West Ham and clearly a people-person, Fornals likes English officials because “in Spain it is too difficult to speak with the referees. Here they understand you’re in a game, you’re motivated and they try to speak gently with you.”
At home he likes relaxing and being “as quiet and rational as I can, because inside the pitch I’m so emotional”. Nonetheless, things get passionate when the Ludo board comes out — he plays against his girlfriend or his friends, for drinks or forfeits, and he admits to being very competitive.
“I want to win everything,” he explains. “That’s why I play football. I am motivated to try to improve.”
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