In April, the Granada striker will join the small group of veterans who are still resisting at that age in the golden division: Joaquín at Betis and Diego López at Espanyol
In April, Jorge Molina will be 40 years old. The Granada striker will join the small group of veterans who are still holding out at that age in the golden division: Joaquín at Betis and Diego López at Espanyol. Some footballers feel disappointed when you do not give them a reverential thanks after granting you an interview, as if you had been given an audience by the Holy Father himself. But Jorge thanked me for including him in the round of interviews I was doing for my next book, as if he doubted his merit.
We talked for more than an hour. And although I insisted on asking him about his successes, he always associated them with some circumstance that favored him at all times. He remembers how he considered an achievement when he made his debut in the Third Division at the age of 18 in his local team, Alcoyano, of which he had been a member since he was a child. “I was lucky,” he says, because the club had empty coffers and had no choice but to count on the quarry.
Jorge does not forget that at the age of 25 he had not yet passed Second B, after playing for Gandía and Benidorm. In his day, the latter seemed “a great team.” He had to travel several hours behind the wheel, because he was studying in Valencia and he was traveling to the club on duty that trusted that big man who dealt with all the defenders of the opposing team.
El Cholo invented the “game by game”, but Jorge had a no less effective slogan between his eyebrows: “training by training”. He got up every day to iron out some imperfection and refine this or that advantageous feature that the coach had made him repair. If he is proud of anything, it is of having been able to learn from each of the coaches and players that life put before him, to all of whom he has words of gratitude.
When I tell him that at Betis they remember him because he was part, with Rubén Castro, of the best duo of forwards that Villamarín has ever seen, he points to the coach, who converted him into a midfielder. «Pepe Mel taught me to always look for the best option. And the best option was usually to give it to Rubén Castro. Rubén has always said that a large part of the 147 goals he scored for Betis is due to Jorge Molina and that no one has understood him better than him, on and off the pitch.
Perhaps because of that vocation to play for his teammates on the pitch and bond with them off the pitch as well, they elevate him wherever he goes. The same spirit of dedication, commitment and collective game captivates any hobby. The other day, when he returned to Getafe with Granada, the fans were waiting for him with a banner with Walt Whitman’s verse, popularized by ‘The Dead Poets Club’: «Oh Captain, my captain». Getafe won, but it was Jorge Molina’s name that was heard the most in the stands.
I asked him about his secret to staying elite as he approached 40. He told me about good nutrition and intermittent fasting. “Before I ate like a buffalo, now I’m lighter.” He was grateful for having been able to learn from the dieticians, as others taught him various lessons, each one in his particular field. “Being willing to continue improving, step by step, and taking care of yourself is the basis —he says—, but I think the most important thing is the illusion. I am lucky that I get up every morning with the same illusion as when I earned 20,000 pesetas in Alcoyano».
He told me that in some stadiums they call him old man and grandfather, and to tease him they urge him to retire. But Jorge takes it with humor and considers it an unforeseen triumph to have reached that age. «I never thought I would play nine years in the First Division. When I was in Second B, it already seemed spectacular to me.
I hinted that I was surprised by his modesty. But he ignored it and went on to something else. Unlike other players I have met, he is uncomfortable being talked about his virtues. He prefers to highlight those who helped him, from the first veterans he met in Third. I think he is too humble to flaunt his humility. But it became clear to me what his secret is.
