It has been nine years since Arsenal spent as much as €20m to bring Lucas Perez to London. The tiny Spaniard failed to impress while with the Gunners, though and spent the rest of his career as a genuine journeyman. He joined PSV Eindhoven a few days ago and is about to star in the Champions League, but his life story has been more than tragic.🗓️ On this day in 2016… Lucas Perez with a hat-trick against Basel ⚽️⚽️⚽️ pic.twitter.com/LQI7kcY7sY— Arsenal (@Arsenal) December 6, 2024 Perez had to survive all kinds of obstacles and traumas to get here.”I was raised by my grandparents, my father’s parents. Because when I was two years old, my parents left me in an orphanage since they could not or did not want to take care of me”, said Perez in the TV show “El Partidazo de Cope”.To make things even worse, this year, he got a lawsuit from his father.”I received a complaint from my father demanding that I pay support for the rest of his life. For months, I was under a lot of stress, anxious because I had to get rid of some difficult moments in my life”.##EDITORS_CHOICE##And if you think there’s nothing more awful than that, wait till you hear what his mother previously did. “When I signed for Arsenal, my mother called, she sent me a fax demanding money. But she couldn’t get it, because she wasn’t even registered as a guardian. Grandma and Grandpa did, they asked for it. And later, the grandmother allowed the father to take over that custody. I was lucky to have such grandparents, they just couldn’t live as long as they should have”.Perez’s father is now asking for his share, even though he did not deserve it, in fact – he gave up his son himself. ##NAJAVA_MECA_8736144##But Lucas Perez was so irritated by the whole story that he had to leave Deportivo this February, even though he is a native of A Coruna. .”I’m leaving, because this whole thing with my father continues. I met him a few times around Christmas and those were not pleasant experiences. And since I didn’t feel that I was appreciated enough even in the club, I decided to be honest, to tell them that it was difficult for me to step aside. We talked about the new contract, decided to take a break, then I get a letter asking me to pledge my loyalty to them. I think they don’t even know what Deportivo means to me, and when there are such doubts, it’s best to part ways.”Neither did I come to Deportivo for money, nor am I going because of money. They were playing all these stories on purpose to hurt me. Finally, on January 30, PSV’s offer arrived, first I told them that I was not fit, because I was injured. But they wrote to me all the time, they were ready for anything, ready to wait for me. I had offers from other clubs, but none were close to PSV’s,” explained Perez.
