The delightful story of how Donato signed for Atlético de Madrid

Rubén Uría tells the Donato story: he thought it was a prank, Baltazar was waiting for him in Madrid with a Bible, and he happily signed a contract that turned out to pay about the same as a reserve-team player.

The panel revisits stories about Donato, the Brazilian who moved from Atlético to Deportivo. Rubén Uría recounts the one the player himself told on the channel: he was at an airport with his Vasco da Gama teammates, after a match in Cádiz according to Hugo Condés, when his name started being called over the tannoy. Thinking it was a prank, he refused to go to the phone.

When he finally picked up, the Vasco president told him he had been sold and that he should catch a flight to Madrid instead of carrying on with the team. Two days later, Condés recalls, he was already making his league debut.

The best part came when he arrived: he was met by Baltazar María de Morais, carrying a Bible, who reassured him about Jesús Gil and advised him to ask for good money.

Donato came out of signing his contract delighted with what he was going to earn, until other people read it and made him realise he would be paid roughly the same as a player... from the reserve team. In other words, Gil had signed Donato for peanuts and handed him a deal well below his worth. Football war stories from the nineties, as Uría puts it.