Urdiales' express replacement in Bilbao: three hours of exhaustion to find a suit, a crew, travel 180 kilometers, and perform at the Vista Alegre bullring.

The second bullfight of the San Isidro Fair announces a trio of Diego Urdiales, David Galván, and Víctor Hernández, with bulls from El Pilar.

The protagonist of today's anecdote is the opening act, who will surely never forget the afternoon of August 28, 2010.

That year, Diego Urdiales had successfully fulfilled his commitment to Bilbao, taking an ear in the Victorino Martín bullfight. Three days later, at 2:30 p.m., the Riojan was enjoying time with his family at his home in Arnedo when the phone rang.

—Hi Diego, I'm Pablo Chopera. How are you? What are you doing?

—Hi, Pablo. Well, here I am, at home, feeding my daughter.

—Hey, hurry up because you have to fight a bull this afternoon in Bilbao.

Urdiales, thinking it was a joke, hung up on him . But Chopera called back and insisted.

—Listen, I'm serious. Perera had some tests done on his back, and even though we've drawn with him, he can't fight. They've detected a crushed bone in his vertebrae, and he has to stop.

—Pablo, give me a moment; I need to process this.

And after hanging up, Urdiales analyzed the situation, which wasn't easy: "It was 2:30 p.m. The bullfight in Bilbao was at 6 p.m. And I was in Arnedo, which is almost two hours away. From my crew, I only had my right-hand man, El Víctor, because the rest live abroad. And to top it all off, I didn't have a bullfighting outfit, because my swordboy was in Madrid with almost all my clothes."

But even so, he decided to go ahead and called Chopera again.

—Pablo, I don't even know how I'm going to get there, but I'll be there. Count on me for this afternoon.

In their haste, they didn't take their ID. And when they got onto the highway, they had to use the change they had on to refuel. They continued their race to Bilbao. When they got there, with no time to stop by the hotel, they decided to go straight to the square. And that's where things went wrong again.

—Whenever I go to Bilbao, I follow the road to the hotel. I'd never entered the city before and went straight to the square. And we got lost. We were desperate.

Then, they saw a group of friends leaving a meal and decided to stop and ask for directions to the bullring. One of them happened to know the bullfighter.

— Man, but you are Diego Urdiales!

—Yes, but I'm not up for introductions. Please tell me how to get to the bullring because I'm bullfighting this afternoon.

—What? Sorry, but you're not bullfighting today . We're going to the bullfights. And you're not bullfighting this afternoon.

—Yeah, but they called me because Perera can't bullfight, so I'll do the bullfighting. Do you know how to get to the bullring or not?

-Yes of course.

At that moment, Urdiales's desperation was such that he grabbed the boy from his chest, put him in the van as if he were being kidnapped , and used him as a human navigator to get to Vista Alegre. Upon arrival, the sensations were extremely strange.

—I left the room in the dress, a pink and gold one I no longer wore and thankfully had at home. It was just after 5 p.m., and there was no one there except for a doorman.

With barely any time left, Urdiales was given a room in the infirmary to change. A doctor arrived, offered him a glass of sugar water, and told him to take a shower to calm the nerves he'd arrived with. And just as the bugles were about to sound, without having seen any of his people, Urdiales came out, all wrapped up in the most surreal parade of his life.

" It was an unbearable, unimaginable feeling . In bullfighting, you can imagine anything, but feeding your daughter at 2:30 p.m. and then walking out the bullring with Ponce and Fandiño at 6 p.m. in Bilbao... It was incredible," he recalls.

Two more details: having arrived with only one peón, the festival had to be held, exceptionally, with seven banderilleros and four picadors. Another thing. The infirmary where he had dressed as a bullfighter alone was later filled with professionals, because apart from Ponce's ear to the fourth bull, the afternoon was marked by the serious gorings suffered by Iván Fandiño and the banderillero Mario Romero, injured by the sixth bull from El Puerto de San Lorenzo.

• Anecdote included in the book 'Other 300 Bullfighting Anecdotes' , published by La Esfera de los Libros