Las Palmas leader Kirian Rodríguez reaches new heights after recovering from cancer

Photo: Gabriel Jimenez Lorenzo/AFP7/Shutterstock

“Life is a roller coaster,” said Kirian Rodríguez. When second division Las Palmas reported for preparation last summer, the midfielder said something was wrong: he was tired, didn’t want to eat and couldn’t sleep. His spleen was inflamed, his kidneys hurt and his calcium levels were too high. Doctors removed a cyst and the biopsy results revealed a Hodgkin’s lymphoma, cancer. It was August 2022 and he was 26. He underwent six sessions of chemotherapy and crossed them off on a calendar. There were pills and injections, he felt weak and his hair fell out. But the worst thing, he said later, was the fear that he wouldn’t play football again, and that’s what really makes him happy.

That makes many other people happy too. “Cancer is something associated with death; I had to be the strong one,” Kirian told ESPN. The day he announced his illness, sitting smiling at a press conference surrounded by his teammates, he told them in a calm, steady voice that broke only once and only briefly, that he wanted no pity and that he would still be there. still shouting from the stands, still the pain in the ass he always was. Most of all, he told them he would play again. There was no rush, but he set a date. Mentally he had to: fulfill a public promise there, it would happen, the positivism part of the process and consciously choose to do so. The winter period would be the best they had, because he would come back.

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Two days later, in the hospital waiting room before his first chemo session, Kirian heard a woman talking about that football player with the same disease, without knowing he was sitting opposite him. He bit his tongue for a while until he heard her say he probably wouldn’t play anymore. “Señora‘, he said, ‘at least let me try.’ The treatment continued, as did the training at Barranco Seco, where he had been going every day for ten years, a boy from Tenerife who came to them as a teenager. His hair slowly returned, and so did his strength. “The day I’m healed will be the day the fourth official holds up the sign with my number on it,” he said.

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He completed his chemo cycle in November 2022; he was cleared in January 2023; and then, in April, the fourth official did so. On a Sunday evening in Zaragoza, 271 days later, the number 20 of Las Palmas stepped onto the football field again. Kirian Rodríguez Concepción, the best signing they could ever have made.

This Saturday afternoon, 258 days later, Kirian’s number went up again. This time he went back in the other direction. There were four minutes left and his work was done as he was handed over the captain’s armband and headed to a standing ovation. It’s not just that he was playing again; it’s that he plays this, in a higher class and better than ever before. He had just produced a performance, an afternoon that was so good, almost perfect in almost every way, that it was hard to know which moment to choose, which snapshot best expressed everything he is and everything he is become.

Maybe it was the first goal, a minute-long movement that unfolded at his feet: from Kirian to Mika Mármol to Kirian to Sergi Cardona to Kirian to Alberto Moleiro to Kirian to finish, not so much a shot as another pass, this time in the net. Or the way he celebrated it, pointing to the twenty-year-old, born in the same city, whom he is mentoring and who left it behind. Perhaps it was the way he celebrated the second, embracing Juanma Herzog, the 19-year-old Canarian, like him, who had just scored on his debut and was in tears. Or how he swept in the third inning in a 3-0 win, with the spotlight once again shifting to the player who played the pass, all about Javi Muñoz.

Maybe it was the 65 steps of his own; the moment of complicity with Dani Parejo, the little smile and a word when his opponent hit the crossbar; the calm authority with which he officiated this game and every game, the complete control he seems to have over everything. He has a strength that is carried lightly, almost gently, not imposed, the group above all else – and it was there in the moment that was most noticeable, in the way the fans stood up for him and the way he stood up. them and defended his teammates.

Six days earlier, Las Palmas were defeated in the Canary Islands derby, with second division Tenerife knocking them out of the Copa del Rey 2-0. Kirian had only played twenty minutes. It was their worst performance of the season and when they arrived back on the boat late in the evening, the fans had been furious. With a week gone and victory in the competition secured, Kirian approached them, the voice of the fans’ leader saying into the microphone, “Quiet, the captain wants to say something” as he came to the stands. There was a silence, and he started.

“We have a bloody brilliant band; we all make a brilliant group together,” Kirian told them. “And we all suffer from it. We also go home angry. Many of the insults these boys received were not deserved. It hurts them, it hurts, just like it hurts all of you. They cry too. We have to stick together. If someone puts four behind us, they put four behind us. We will fall, we will cry, we will do what we have to do. But when we suffer, we need you more than ever. Today was a day to get up again.” There was applause from the stands, the reconciliation was complete, and then they began to sing: How can we not love you?

Well, quite a bit. When Kirian came on against Zaragoza in April and played his first game of the season 38 weeks later, Las Palmas lost 1-0. By the time he left, they had evened it out. He started the next four games of the season, which were also the last four games of the season, and they lost none, gaining automatic promotion on goal difference and returning to the first division six years later. “We went up and made a lot of people happy, but the biggest triumph was that Kirian became a footballer again,” said the club’s manager García Pimienta.

Sevilla 2-3 Alavés, Las Palmas 3-0 Villarreal, Mallorca 1-1 Celta, Bilbao 2-1 Sociedad, Betis 1-0 Granada, Almería 0-0 Girona, Cádiz 1-4 Valencia Supercup final Real Madrid 4-1 Barcelona

And what a footballer. Kirian had never been there and it took six weeks for Las Palmas to secure a first division win. When he finally did, against Granada, he was the one who scored the winner – with a brilliant shot in the 90th minute. In that series at the end of last season they had played against Eibar, Cartagena, Alavés and Villarreal B; this Saturday he scored twice against Villarreal’s first team, putting Las Palmas three points away from a European place.

“It was a tough week: the cup match was painful. But this group trains like the very best; it’s an incredible group, a pleasure. It is very difficult to find a changing room like ours, with the unity we have. When the weekend comes, you should enjoy it. Hopefully we still haven’t found our ceiling yet,” Kirian said. “Football has brought us where it puts us: on the crest of a wave,” came the voice from the stands at the end of that conversation full time.

With five goals, Kirian is Las Palmas’ top scorer, but that’s not it; it is everything, including the experiences that shape him and the people around him. Kirian studied psychology and before every match there is a moment for mindfulness. He is the embodiment of everything they want to be, a small team with the second smallest salary cap first who have more possession of the ball than anyone except Madrid and Barcelona – not least because, he says, if they just booted the ball we’d probably be eliminated by January. Moreover, he emphasizes: in the Canary Islands you grow up with a ball at your feet; why would you ever want to change that?

“What can I say about him? He is a player for whom there is a special feeling,” says García Pimienta. “That was there from the beginning. [But] this season he has taken a step forward in terms of leadership, he is playing very well, he wants every ball; he never hides.”

He was involved in more than three times as many actions as the rest of the Las Palmas midfielders, made three times as many passes and created twice as many chances. In all of La Liga, only one player has made more passes or had more touches – Girona’s Aleix García. Only two players have made more passes into the opponent’s half, and only six have recovered possession more. “Last year he had the problem and now look how he plays: it’s a great moment and he deserves it,” said García Pimienta.

There may be no one better this season; there is certainly no one you would rather watch play. When he left on Saturday, the coach whose team he broke up was among those applauding him; more than any other, perhaps that was the moment. “I just wanted to express how happy I am to see him put all that behind him,” said Villarreal manager Marcelino García Toral. Is this the best moment of your career, Kirian was asked. “Yes, without a doubt,” he said. “For everything: for my family, my people, the group, the island. Everything has come together after what I went through last year. I enjoy this to the max, because ultimately life is a roller coaster.”