Manuel Díaz published a photograph embracing his father minutes before appearing in public
“The photo of my life”, this is how Manuel Díaz described the image that he himself published on his social networks of the first private meeting with his father, Manuel Benítez. More than half a century the right-hander, who is 54 years old, has waited to be able to have that first date with his 86-year-old mother, who this Tuesday was proclaimed the V Caliph of bullfighting in Córdoba. That was the act chosen by ‘El Cordobés’ father and ‘El Cordobés’ son to make his first public appearance. At the event, both were accompanied by their respective partners, María de los Ángeles Quesada and Virginia Troconis, and Julio also participated, the youngest of the five children that Manuel Benítez had with his wife, the French Martina Fraysse. Julio, in addition to being the best known for having also followed in his father’s footsteps, is the only one who has had an excellent relationship with his stepbrother for years.
During the event, everyone greeted each other very affectionately and it was so emotional that even Virginia Troconis could not help but cry as she saw her husband fulfill his dream. In February of last year, Manuel Benítez was going through an extremely complicated health situation and had to undergo emergency surgery twice due to heart problems. That trance seems to have been the trigger that led him to want to face all the pending issues, among which was an approach to his son.
In fact, shortly after, in March, it became known that the first telephone contacts between father and son had already begun. “He has given me a glove and I have picked it up,” Manuel Díaz recounted at the time. “Things are taking hold,” he prudently explained while announcing that if there was any news, he would tell it completely naturally as he has always done. And so it has been.
For his part, ‘El Cordobés’ father was enthusiastic: «I have no words, I am very happy with everything, everything comes in due time, thank God, we are here and we are going to sail in the same boat». “He is a very affectionate man, quite a fighter and a caste bullfighter,” he said of his recently accepted son and described his new daughter-in-law as “very good.” «We still have a long way to go to talk, to navigate and have a great time together. Everything that we have not enjoyed before, we are going to enjoy now. And we agree on everything. He is my son and I am his father,” he said for the first time.
The meeting has not been an easy task. To begin with, it was the courts that determined the paternity of Manuel Benítez in 2016. In addition, years before when Díaz announced that he would adopt the same nickname as Benítez in the bullfighting arena, the newly named V Caliph of bullfighting got many businessmen to annul the shows and did not hesitate to take legal action that did not prove him right. Fifty years of rudeness that did not hold him with resentment, although they did make him throw in the towel in 2015 and this is what he confessed to Bertín Osborne on the interview program ‘En tu casa o en la mía’ months before presenting in February 2016 the paternity suit, something he had resisted until then in favor of a reconciliation that seemed like it would never come.
“Mom, I know who my father is and I want to be a bullfighter.” These were the words that, being a child of only eleven years old, Manuel Díaz said to his mother when he stepped foot in a bullring for the first time. Now it is the father who has finally recognized his son. Among the most special congratulations, those of Alba Díaz, the 23-year-old daughter he had with her ex-wife, Vicky Martín Berrocal, and that of Vicky herself, with whom he has an excellent relationship. Anne Igartiburu, Eva González, Jorge Cadaval, Remedios Cervantes or Paula Echevarría are also among the familiar faces that have added to his happiness.
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