Grocer during the week, footballer at the weekend, Olimpic Xativa defender gets ready for biggest game of his life

Olimpic Xativa’s left-back Jose Peris

Jose Peris is preparing for the visit of Real Madrid and is all set to take up the unenviable task of keeping tabs on the likes of Gareth Bale or Angel Di Maria when his Olimpic Xativa side take on the Spanish giants in the Copa del Rey.

However, as reported on Marca.com, Peris has another daily routine that doesn’t involve the footballing environs. At 09:30 every morning, he heads to Valencia’s ‘El Cabanyal’ market to help out his uncle with his grocery store. Part of his daily routine involves restocking the produce, taking care of deliveries, placing orders for procuring fresh stock, and other such routine acitivities associated with being in a grocery store.

Once he’s done with the groceries, he puts on his footballing boots and turns out as the left-back for Xativa.

He’s just like anybody else in the marketplace, usually that is. This week he has been bombarded with calls from people, some even asking him for a ticket to the big game. He says that the moment his team was drawn against Madrid, he had trouble sleeping for a few days and often used to wake up in the middle much to his girlfriend’s worries.

“I was waking up at three in the morning until my girlfriend asked: ‘What’s going on, José?’ … and I said: ‘I don’t know whose shirt to ask for”.

“I have friends coming out of the woodwork, even people from school calling me asking for tickets.”

“The club has given us two tickets per head and the rest have to be paid for”, chuckles Peris.

He’s also keen on tackling the challenge in front of him – “I know that Ronaldo can’t play, but I would love to have a high speed showdown with Bale. To find out how far I can push myself. Even if it’s not Bale who comes but Morata, Jesé, Isco, Di María….they’re all out of this world”.