DUBAI With his neatly gelled Pompadour crew cut and a left ear-ring to boot, he often attracts a second glance from his customers. Some even go so far as to take selfies with him, wheedling him for a cheeky wink.
For Ulises Goncales, life as a waiter at La Tablita restaurant in the Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights has suddenly become a lot busier than what he bargained for since he started sporting his new look – one that bears an uncanny resemblance to Real Madrid star Cristiano Ronaldo. “I suddenly started getting this extra attention from December when I got this haircut done and started wearing a ring,” gushes the shy 28-year-old from Mexico City.
As a five-year-old boy growing up in the world’s largest Spanish-speaking city, all Goncales dreamt of was to become a professional footballer and play for Spain’s Real Madrid just like his retired hero Hugo Sanchez – widely considered Mexico’s greatest footballer. However, his family’s ‘extremely humble’ background meant he had to forego his dream even before it took off. “I wanted to join the academy at Club América, Mexico’s most successful football club, but their fee of 20,000 Mexican pesos (Dh4,200) back then was way too steep for us. My mum said she would rather spend it on my education and not football and that was it. But I never gave up on my love for the game,” says the son of a bus driver whose favourite among the current crop of players remains Ronaldo.
Ronaldo-looks
“I still continue to be a fan of Madrid and if there’s one footballer I really follow that’s him,” adds Goncales who puts his love for the world’s most sought after footballer down to his style, attitude and skill in that order. “Many people label him arrogant, but I find him really classy in whatever he does,” says the man who spends Dh30 every fortnight on a haircut to maintain his Ronaldo looks.
Today pescados and champis rule much of his day-to-day life as he goes about serving tacos at the newly-opened Mexican restaurant in a hotel at Dubai Healthcare City. On his day off he does get on a football pitch with his mates, sometimes donning his favourite Los Blancos shirt.
“Most days we play football in our accommodation, but somedays we even play cricket,” said the man who moved to Dubai a little over a year ago following a stint as a kitchen assistant in a Chicago restaurant. “Life away from the family is tough, but these are happy distractions,” says the father of two kids, who still dreams of playing professional football. While it may be too late to follow in the footsteps of Santiago Muñez - the fictional character who fights poverty as a child to ultimately represent Mexico in a World Cup after becoming a Real Madrid superstar in the Goal! trilogy, he reckons it’s not late to at least start playing more regularly.
“That aside, I would love to see Ronaldo score a hat-trick in an El Classico at the Bernabeu,” says Goncales who makes about Dh1,500 a month.
