IT has not been an easy journey for Davinson Sanchez.
The Tottenham defender might be a multi-millionaire Premier League star now.
But as a kid growing up in Colombia, his dad could not afford to pay for TWO bus fares to join him for the journey to training.
That meant a ten-year-old Sanchez had to make the two-hour trip across one of the country’s most dangerous regions on his own.
Gangs and crime were never far away and some of his school pals who took that path are now either in jail — or the cemetery.
But Sanchez, despite his parents splitting up before he reached high school, stayed on the straight and narrow thanks to football.
And aged just 20, he moved 5,500 miles to join Dutch giants Ajax — having rejected Barcelona because he insisted he was too good to play for their B team.
Sanchez has always had a strong belief in his own ability.
It is that confidence which enabled him to speak with such assurance at a Black History Month event organised by Tottenham Hotspur Foundation last week.
The centre-back quizzed the young people on their knowledge of key black figures in football history,
View this post on InstagramNuestro Primer aniversario Esposa; Absoluta felicidad
But the select group of teens, sat safely socially distanced in one of their stadium’s huge NFL locker rooms, did know that their special guest’s own back story is as equally as inspiring.
Sanchez, 24, was born and bred in the small rural town of Caloto.
He explained: “I started playing football when I was about six and it was sometimes hard to take the bus.
“My father used to take me to training and it was not always easy because he also had to bring food to the table. I would train every day after school from 3.30pm until 5.30pm and then I had to take three buses to get home, which would take at least two hours.
“Sometimes I would not get home until 8pm or 9pm — and then I would have to do my school homework. Many times I would fall asleep at the table.
“When I started going to training my father used to take me. But that meant we had to buy two bus tickets and it was not easy for us, you know.
“The tickets only cost £2 each but we had to get two or three buses.
“I knew it was costing the family too much money so one day when I was about 10 or 11 I said to him, ‘Look, this is taking away my nest egg! I know the roads and where the buses stop so I am old enough now to travel on my own’.”
Asked if it was dangerous, he admitted: “At the time I didn’t think so because I was young — but I wouldn’t do it now.”
With crime rife in Caloto, Sanchez regularly had to run the gauntlet.
The Spurs centre-back, who insisted he never encountered racism growing up or in football, recalled: “I saw a lot of bad things like drugs and people stealing things.
“I know friends who took what I call the easy way and some of them are now dead, or in jail, because they were involved in bad things.
“But I also have a lot of friends from school who took the right way and they are working in good jobs and are good fathers, brothers and sons.
“It is up to you which path you choose. But taking the easy way was never an option for me.”
By his teens, Sanchez already had a reputation as one of the hottest football prospects in Colombia and he was snapped up by one of its top clubs Atletico Nacional — whom he later helped win the 2016 Copa Libertadores.
A £4.5million transfer to Ajax followed that summer after he had rejected a move to Barcelona.
The Catalan giants had already agreed a deal with Nacional — but headstrong Sanchez refused to go.
He explained: “The agreement was that I had to go to Barcelona B and from there I had to build up my experience.
“I said to them, ‘You need to check the agreement as I am not going to the second team. If I leave now I want to play for the first team — I don’t want to play for the competition I don’t know’.
“They said, no, so I said the deal was not for me.”
Tottenham signed Sanchez from Ajax back in 2017 for a then club-record fee of £35m and he has become a key man for Jose Mourinho this season.
But he has never forgotten his roots and, despite his relatively young age, has set up a foundation in Caloto which coaches, educates and feeds 600 poor children and their families.
Sanchez will also have another mouth to feed shortly as his wife Daniela is due to give birth to their first child any day.
That will not stop him from boarding the Spurs team bus to their Premier League clash at Burnley tonight as they aim to shake off that crazy 3-3 draw with West Ham.
Not the longest or toughest journey he has ever made…
