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Viva Espagna The current European Champions from 2002 by András Kolozs During my 14 years of collecting, I have learned, that the sweetest catch of an autograph is always, if someone who is relatively unknown at the time of hunting, years later will be a world famous person. E.g. I have got Nicolas Sarkozy as finance minister, and his signature is so nice from that age, today he is the President of France.
The most common to get autograps from the heroes in sport category, before they reach their achievements. I have got Michael Schumacher, Hakkinen, Alonso and Raikkönen, before their first world championship, and many many olympic champions as same way too.
I think the greatest among these huntings are the 9 players from the current Spanish football squad, which have won the Euro 2008 in Vienna.
In 2002 our football hero, Ferenc Puskás was 75 years old, and one of the events in the anniversary celebration was a football macth, Hungary agains Spain in Budapest. 
We went with my friends to the hotel for a day, to obtain Raúl González, Morientes, and the other recent Spanish stars. We got Iker Casillas, Puyol, Mendieta and almost all members of the squad. 
The Spanish players were very kind to sign, and we could have take part at the press conference too, where we have received nice press issues with photos about the team. Five or more hours we spent at the hotel among the stars, when later came the U21 squad, to take part on a program at press events. (They have had a match to against the Hungarian U21, a day before the offical, Squad A match.) Young, 18-20 years old boys come, they have played not in the most popular Spanish clubs. One of my friend came the idea to ask signature from them too. We did not have any material, but asked for the press officers an A4 sheet with the names. We did not recognized anyone from that team, they were not famous, but we counted, that some day these guys will also be in the Squad A, and the Spanish Squad A is always a good team, every time they have chance to win some international tournament. They come and sign, as I saw they were happy because of this piece of fame. As young guys it could be one of their first autograph signings. We showed the A4 sheet them, ask for signing, they searched their names on the sheet and did it kindly. Later we tried to figure out which signatures belong to which names. We were happy when find a name who recently (in 2002) played in the Barca (Portillo) or Real (Minambres), because we thought they will be the greatest players of the future. About some other names we thought they are not so valuable, because they played in smaller clubs. (David Villa – Real Sporting de Gijon, Fernando Torres – Atl. Madrid)
A few years later I have read about some new Spanish football stars, searched the signed sheet from my archives: it was a great surprise to me and have got a smile. The names which were unknown a few years before, became really first class players.
This summer it was clear to me, that I have to support the Spanish Squad at the UEFA Euro 2008: after the final in my autograph collection I have counted 9 brandnew European Champion footballers: Iker Casillas, Juanito, Puyol and Xavi from the Squad A, Reina, Fernando Navarro, Xabi Alonso, David Villa and Fernando Torres from the ancient U21 Squad. 
I think it was a good idea, a good investment to ask autographs from these young guys. Thanks for signing in 2002 and thanks for win the Championship six years later – I hope to see them also flying high at FIFA 2010.
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Autograph Article 
