Sergio Camello was born in Madrid in 2001, in the working-class neighbourhood of San Blas, a few kilometres from the Estadio de Vallecas.
His mother has always worked in a clothes shop in the Plenilunio shopping centre, and his father in the marketing department of an adhesive label company.
He grew up with his twin brother in a family that was not poor, he says, but very humble, where they learned to count every euro.
Trained at Atlético de Madrid, loaned out to Mirandés, then Rayo, before choosing to move there permanently in 2023, rejecting an agreement already reached with Cadiz to stay at Vallecas, Camello could have followed the classic path of the footballer who fades behind his agent and his brands. He chose something different.
A distaste for where football is heading
In a world where players learn not to say anything so as not to offend anyone, Camello speaks out.
After a match against Real Sociedad with controversial refereeing, he told DAZN: "Football was beautiful when it was football.
"When I was a kid, it was something else. What the higher-ups want to do with it is crap. Before, the protagonists were the players.
"Now we go to VAR for an action that isn't clear. It wasn't a penalty. It's a terrible penalty. We boast about having the best league in the world, but we're wrong about what we're making the people who pay suffer."
And then there is this sentence, which has gone viral, uttered in front of ABC, which sums up better than any political statement what he is all about.
Asked about his management of money, he replied: "You won't see me dressed as a brand and buying myself a €600 t-shirt, when my mother earns €700 a month. In that case, I'll take the 600 euros and give it to my mother."
He also added, simply: "I don't have a watch. I can't have a very expensive watch and see that my brother doesn't have one."
Rayo, "the last vestige of football before"
Speaking at UEFA's Media Day ahead of the Leipzig final, Camello summed up what his club stands for in one sentence.
"Rayo, I think, is the last vestige of the football of yesteryear. It's what we breathe.
"When I invite people to the stadium, I always tell them that football is the least important part, what counts is everything you feel, the pre-matches, the union with the people, what happens inside, how the stands sing and what they fight for."
The kitty, or when the dressing room becomes the barrio
A few days before the final, a story circulated that could not have happened at any other club.
A number of Rayo fans fell victim to a scam via a false advert on social networks: seven Vallecanos lost a large sum of money, and with it their dream of travelling to Leipzig for the Conference League final.
This was not an isolated case: a few days earlier, Enrique, an 80-year-old supporter, had suffered a similar scam with a coach company.
The Ray community took to X to expose the situation and launch an appeal for donations. The message reached captain Óscar Valentín, who passed it on to the dressing room.
The response was immediate: Sergio Camello contributed €2,000, Andrei Rațiu €1,000 and Dani Cárdenas €400, among others.
As had happened a few years earlier with Carmen, an old lady threatened with expulsion whom the players and fans had helped to pay off her debts, the dressing room once again united.
"Nobody can take away from us what we've already experienced".
After the historic qualification in Strasbourg, Camello posted an Instagram story that had nothing to do with a player's statement.
No sponsor, no formula. Just a text, written from the heart, the player who is so sensitive to art and a film buff that he has a letterboxd account in his name to record his film screenings.
"For the people who descended into hell without knowing that paradise was in Germany. For those who got there before us, not knowing they'd run into their Little Rayo.
"For the everyday problems that we drown in Payaso Fofó. For those who have suffered as sons what they now savour as fathers. Because Vallecas fights for its Rayo, and the Rayo fights back for its neighbourhood.
Because it was never about football. For the people who gave up everything to travel around Europe with their Franja. For them, who will spend the summer glued to a fan.
"Because many of them won't be seeing the sea this summer. Madrid in August, like Manolito Gafotas. Because they will have to return to reality: to overtime, to tears, to sad embraces, to the suffering of the last days, to the grey days.
For Rafa, Lola, Antonio, Manolito, Delibasic, Willy, Trejo... Because the road we've travelled is so much more than any of us asked for on our birthday when we blew out the candles. Because one day that damned alarm clock will ring and wake us up from this dream. Nobody can take away from us what we've already lived!"
It's an ode to Vallecas, to its people, to the sacrifices made by Rayo fans, many of whom have chosen to drive to Leipzig from Madrid for lack of funds, and to Manolito Gafotas, the emblematic figure of a popular, no-nonsense Madrid... This text alone explains why Vallecas has adopted Camello as one of its own.
"The best day of our lives
This is how Camello describes 27 May 2026, the day of the final, as "the best day of our lives". And he makes no secret of his conviction: "I'm certain that the trophy will be ours.
From the Olympic Games in Paris 2024, where he scored twice in the final against France to give Spain gold, to the Conference League final in Leipzig in 2026, Camello is one of the few players in the dressing room who can boast of having already played in and won a final.
He knows what it takes. He also knows what it means for a club like Rayo, for a neighbourhood like Vallecas.
"We've worked for this and it moves you, because two years after a terrible battle for survival, we're here.
"It's going to be unforgettable, because Rayo don't guarantee that it'll be like this every year. We have to enjoy it as the most festive and historic day for Rayo in a long time."