Sergi Canos is finally gaining the recognition he deserves in English football — and it only took eight years.
When the Spaniard lashed home his effort from inside the box against Arsenal, the crowd erupted. As Canos set off down the touchline to celebrate with the fans, he could be forgiven if he felt that football truly did not get better than that.
And yet, for the Bees, it did.
Christian Norgaard headed home a second 15 minutes from time to hand the west London outfit, promoted for the first time to the Premier League this season, their first-ever win at the first attempt.
The scenes at the final whistle were memorable. As Thomas Frank beamed, roared and embraced Brentford fans in the crowd, his players did a victory lap around the pitch — as if they had won the league.
The fans were signing in jubilation and that feeling of elation was not going to end anytime soon as they partied into the night on Friday.
But for Canos, it was evident just how much scoring that goal had meant to him.
“I’ve been dreaming about scoring the first goal in the stadium,” he told Sky Sports after the match. “These people deserve it, we deserve it, these three great points.
“It is a fantastic moment for me and my family… my two uncles came all the way from Spain to be here, I’ve got all my family there in Spain watching the game, so for me it’s amazing.”
Canos was not born in Brentford, nor even England for that matter. But he gets it.
He gets that the club was founded on its roots with the community and those ties remain strong.
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He gets what it means for the fans to be back inside the stadium for 18 months, celebrating every single one of their 38 Premier League games as if it is their last.
He gets what Frank is trying to achieve with his fast-flowing, energetic football that helped the Bees win promotion on the second try.
But Canos is under no illusions that the road from rural Spain as a young boy to scoring the opening goal of their Premier League chapter has been long and difficult.
Having begun his career with CD Castellon, Canos moved to Barcelona ’s famous La Masia academy in 2010 at the age of 13 and described the attraction of living at such a prestigious campus.
“It was when [Pep] Guardiola won six trophies in a season,” he recalled in an interview with The Guardian.
“It was amazing because La Masia became ‘Wow, La Masia’. And we were living in La Masia.
“I laugh now but we used to look out of the windows of the rooms and you would see the tourist bus.
“Everyone was taking photos because it became where Messi used to live, where [Andres] Iniesta used to live, [Sergio] Busquets, [Gerard] Pique, [Carles] Puyol, [Victor] Valdes.”
It was not long before English clubs started to catch wind of his talents and Liverpool recruited him in 2013, bringing him to Merseyside under Brendan Rodgers.
For two months, Canos lived with a family in West Derby, which is situated close to the club’s former training ground in Melwood. There, he would try to improve his English before his family joined him in the UK.
“In Barcelona they said you can be in Under-18s, Under-19s, but I couldn’t play real football. Liverpool offered me real football and I trained with the first team sometimes,” he said.
“For a kid of 16, that was amazing. If you get told that in the next months you are going to train with Luis Suarez, Steven Gerrard and Brendan Rodgers as a manager – you take it. I’d take it now, in five years and in 10 years.”
Despite his positive memories of Anfield, there was a feeling that he was never given a chance to show his promise at the club and he left for Norwich in a £3.5million deal, having impressed during a loan spell with Brentford in 2015-16.
Canos revealed he was offered a new five-year contract by the Reds but turned it down, having become accustomed to regular football at Griffin Park.
But after failing to settle with Norwich after just one season, he headed back to Brentford — a place he felt a sense of belonging.
Since then, his upturn in happiness has transferred onto the pitch and can now call himself an important part of the squad with 33 goals in 209 appearances.
He has those happy memories from Wembley after winning promotion via the play-offs, having experienced heartbreak against Fulham the season before.
Now 24 years old and ready to take on his first full season in the top-flight, there is no reason for Canos to look back. Instead, he is confident there is more to come from the newly-promoted side.
“I felt nervous. I’m not going to lie,” he said. “It was the first game in the Premier League for a lot of players. We were playing Arsenal and we have so much respect for them.
“But I think we showed we are here in the Premier League because we deserve it."
Like the Brentford fans, Canos is optimistic that they can make their case of survival this season by making the Brentford Community Stadium a place to be feared.
“I hope this is going to be our fortress this season. I hope the fans do this every week because we need them,” he added.
“We are all one as a club. It’s going to be a hard league so we need their support.”
With Canos in the side, the prolific Ivan Toney up front and the fact they have already claimed a scalp by beating Arsenal, only a fool would dismiss their confidence.
