It’s A Christmas Miracle! La Liga’s Poorest Paid Player Mario Martínez Rubio Wins Part Of “El Gordo” Lottery

To paraphrase Chris Rock, when you’re playing top-league soccer in Europe, you’re not starving. You don’t have to worry about putting extra cheese on your Whopper. But when you’re Numancia’s Mario Martínez Rubio, and you’re getting paid 1/75th of what Samuel Eto’o is making over at Barca, you may have to substitute going to the mall instead of the club a few times (even if you do have your Cristiano Ronaldo on like in the picture). That’s why finding out that Rubio, literally the least paid player in the league, won some of the 3.2 billion Euros given out in the El Gordo Christmas Lottery warms even the deepest cockles of our hearts. And our cockles go deep.

For Mario, boys and girls, is poor. Not proper poor - he doesn’t rattle a tin at passers-by, drink Meths or shout incoherently whilst slowly soiling his slacks - but football poor. For Mario is the worst paid player in primera. He’s got the carefully crafted spiky front and mullet back combo, he’s got a red Audi, and he’s got the CK boxers, tight Versace T-shirt and gold chain but he lives at home with his little brother and his mum, who runs the local false leg and fake hip emporium.

Oh. Our. God. It’s even got the Tiny Tim angle right there! OK, so we’re being a little big facetious (he does make about $225,000 a year), but Martínez Rubio seems like he’s awesomely loyal to his Numancia squad—second generation player who still lives in the super-small town where he grew up and the team is based. Not that he’d be playing, but if Raul won the lottery, we’d be hiring people overseas to throw pretzels at him like when Mr. Burns won the Minivan at the Atoms game.
Mario makes Barça pay as Numancia provide a heartwarming shock [Guardian UK]
Image [joinfutbol.com]