“You start with ‘What if?’ in your head, and you cannot stop it.” Miguel Layún is feeling his way slowly through the complex yet terrifyingly raw emotions that confronted him in May 2019. He had flown back to Monterrey from his parents’ home after receiving a call from his club doctor, telling him to return immediately, and had sat through the journey half-expecting what was to come. One more medical test upon landing, and then the bombshell: Layún had a malignant tumour in his abdomen and there was no further time to waste.
What if the cancer had metastasised? What if something went wrong during the surgery? What if his young family were about to lose their husband and father? He entered the operating theatre feeling more aware than ever of the thin line between life and death. After leaving it, the news he received was positive: the cancer had been removed cleanly and a further check confirmed the all-clear. Layún would miss Mexico’s Concacaf Gold Cup campaign, and was under doctor’s orders to rest for a month, but the world as he knew it would keep turning after all.
More than a year later, some of those questions still swirl around. Layún wonders what would have happened had he and his wife not decided to undergo general medical check-ups, an idea brought on when a friend died of a heart attack. The initial investigations discovered what was, the medics told him, at best a cyst; he knew to prepare for the worst but was ready to play for his country in the meantime until Monterrey, the club he had joined four months previously from Villarreal, got wind of the situation. “It was a lucky hit,” he says. “I’m Catholic, so I really thank God. Maybe if I’d still been playing in Europe I wouldn’t have gone to the hospital and none of it would have turned out this way.”
It has been, and remains, a life well lived. Layún’s tone is sober when discussing his near-miss but otherwise the conversation is vibrant: full of memories, quips and ideas. He is a superstar in Mexico, which means an intensity of fame European audiences might not compute, and there are few regrets at how things have turned out. If anything nags, it is that a richly promising spell in England was cut short after little more than six months.
“Unfinished business,” he sighs when recalling his time at Watford, where he had helped the club win promotion under Slavisa Jokanovic and started well for Quique Sánchez Flores in the top flight before being shifted to Porto in August 2015. “I didn’t want to move at that moment so it was weird, very hard, but I also understand how football works. Maybe in future I can come back to England and make that unfinished business a ‘done’ business.”
It had been a gamble to join Watford. For one thing Layún’s wife was pregnant and his employers in Mexico, Club América, had told him to name his price for a new contract. His family warned him he risked letting everyone down by moving, for less money, to a second-tier club barely known across the ocean. “But I said: ‘I want something more; I want to be better than who I am right now,’” he says. “When we got promoted I started crying. It had been a very big bet to join Watford and let go all the other chances in Mexico for this big dream I had.”
England amused him. Why didn’t people go in for a hug when he greeted them at the training ground? It also taught him a lesson. “If I’m honest, it was very hard for my ego. I swear, here in Mexico I’d call a restaurant and say: ‘Listen, it’s Miguel Layún and I want to take dinner, could you book me a table?’ They’d arrange something – didn’t matter if it was full or not. In England when I called them it was: ‘Hi, sorry, it’s Miguel Layún from Watford.’ The reply: ‘Err … yeah?’ But it also gave me the chance to live the life we sometimes need and desire, to walk on the streets and be nobody.”
Performing in the Championship had a similar effect – “I’d played in the World Cup, was a star back home, and now it was like ‘Please … I can’t even get on the ball!’” – but he came to find English football suited him. Layún’s searing, insistent style has made him an eyecatching proposition in a number of wide roles but in other leagues he would sometimes be told to rein it in. “In England I could sense the difference immediately. You run through three-quarters of the pitch and everyone starts screaming ‘shoooooot!’. You can hit the worst shot ever and people will clap for you because they really appreciate you trying to score. I love it.”
Layún would like more Mexicans to experience the same. He first left Liga MX at 21 for a short-lived spell at Atalanta, and was 26 by the time Watford called. His country needs to market its league more effectively to the world, he thinks, and should be open to letting its lavishly talented youngsters move to Europe.
“Look at [Wolves’] Raúl Jiménez. He’s 29 and I’m not surprised about him at all, he’s one of the best centre-forwards around right now and I think he’ll do it even better next year. But if we think a little bit out of the picture, what could have happened if he had moved three or four years earlier [than at 24, when he left Club América for Atlético Madrid]? It came late for him and everybody needs time to adapt. But if we don’t start sending footballers younger it’s going to happen every single time.”
For four seasons Layún and Jiménez played in an América team that won the title in 2014. Layún is 32 and, whether or not he gets one last opportunity to join his friend back in England, the time is nearing when other passions will have to dominate. He is a video game fanatic and this summer founded an esports team – 19esports, after his favoured shirt number. The aim is to create a business career after football, while giving opportunities for talented Fifa and Pubg Mobile players to make a living. “You know when you have a small bean, and it keeps growing and becomes a plant?” he says. “I wanted to be there when this grows and becomes as big as it can be.”
The gratitude that he can plan that far ahead at all is profound. He says it straight up: having cancer changed him, made him understand second chances cannot be taken for granted. “You’re here just once. If you won’t do the things you really want to do because you are scared of what people think or say, you are not understanding the meaning of life.
“It’s weird, sometimes I think ‘Yeah, I’ll be here for ever.’ Then I look at my scar and say: ‘OK, you’re not going to be. So enjoy your life more.’ It’s what this situation made me learn.”
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