Ronald Collante extended his workday on Tuesday to follow up Brighton this Wednesday in their final game of the season Premier League playing at home. The “Seagulls” will host the champion Manchester City at the Amex Stadium (originally called Falmer), in a postponed match of the 32nd round.

Born in Quitocame London 8 years ago, after a stop in Madrid where he finished his university studies. Ever since he can remember, he has been a fan of football and movies about the king of sports and documentaries related to team bars and hooligans. He lives in South London, specifically in the Wimbledon area.

He fell in love with English football in 2005 when he saw a film Goal, which is about a Mexican immigrant who crosses the border and moves to the United States, then goes to try his luck in the United Kingdom with the Newcastle United soccer team. I was living in Ecuador at the time, but I was already dreaming of going to the UK to watch football matches. At that time I was playing in the Premier League Ulises de la Cruz in it Astonville.

“And look, the coincidences of life now I live in this country and I can live what I thought one day when I was in Ecuador,” he says in an interview with EL UNIVERSO.

“I could see Antonio Valencia, Jefferson Montero, Enner Valencia; Joel Valencia when he signed for Brentford in League Two. But I couldn’t go like now when I go every weekend because you have to take into account that going to the Premier League is expensive for mobilization and tickets. “In the beginning, I didn’t know how to buy tickets, that I had to become a member, and in the end I bought resold tickets that were four times more expensive than a normal ticket,” Ronald narrates.

In the process of learning, he started attending Championship matches (England’s second division) for Birmingham City, where Montero played, and Brentford, where Joel Valencia already played. As the stadiums were not full, he explains, he could get tickets for £30 or £40. For his first Premier League ticket, Manchester United-West Ham United, when Antonio Valencia was a member of the ‘Red Devils’, he admits he paid close to £200 to get a seat on the top (and off the pitch) of Old Trafford.

But while the ticketing system was investigated, Ronald applied to offices in Brighton and was added to the waiting list. Two years later, he was approved to buy a ticket for the entire season, so he can follow the team of his compatriots Jeremy Sarmiento, Moises Caicedo and Pervis Estupiñán when they play home games and as guests.

“In a match I witnessed when Antonio Valencia played between Manchester United and West Ham United, in the city of Manchester, I remember paying almost 200 pounds sterling and having to sit on top of Old Trafford,” he comments.