But reminders of the makeshift nature of his new life are also
everywhere, seven months after a Spanish sports academy offered
Mohsen a home and help in finding a job when they heard he used to
coach a first division team in Syria.
The apartment that well-wishers have housed him in is adorned with
someone else's trinkets, including rows of encyclopedias in Spanish,
a language Mohsen still struggles to speak. And half his family is
missing.
Mohsen's story went viral after he was filmed being tripped up by a
camera woman as he fled police near the Hungarian border with Serbia
last September. He was carrying his youngest son Zaid, then 7, in
his arms at the time, and the two fell sprawling on the ground.
Footage of the incident helped bring him to the attention of a
soccer training school in Getafe on the outskirts of Madrid, which
found him work as a liaison officer. Zaid, now a year older, as well
as 17-year-old Mohammed, who was in Germany at the time, live in the
neighborhood with their father.
Mohsen's wife and two other children remain in Mersin, southern
Turkey. The family left the war-torn Syrian town of Deir el-Zor
together around four years ago.
"I see my future here," says Mohsen, whose eyes light up when
talking, in broken English, about the local junior team he sometimes
helps train, Villaverde-Boetticher.
For a Reuters Wider Image photo essay on Mohsen in Spain, click on:
http://reut.rs/1TKDLcC
Mohsen is proud of the way his sons have settled into school and
learned good enough Spanish to help translate for him.
Yet the strain and worry of recent months is also evident. Mohsen
has become something of a media star, as one of the few feel good
stories to emerge from Europe's migrant crisis. Hundreds of
thousands of refugees are still trying to flee conflict and poverty
in the Middle East and beyond.
He says he does up to three interviews a day.
But the attention has not yet helped him reunite his family, even
though he says he has filed all the paperwork to apply for their
visas.
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"I need to relax more, I'm very tired," he says.
Spain's government said at the end of last year it would accept more
than 17,000 refugees as part of EU-wide efforts to resettle asylum
seekers.
So far it has only taken in 18 of those of 200 it pledged to welcome
from Italy and Greece, according to the latest European Commission
data, though more are expected to arrive from this month.
Spain will also take in 100 Syrian migrants from Turkey following a
new EU pact to block the flow of migrants entering illegally through
Greece and process them directly with Ankara instead.
It is unclear how that EU deal will affect Mohsen's situation.
The family's love of soccer has brought them some solace as they
wait for news. Mohammed plays in a local team too, while Zaid got to
walk into Real Madrid's Bernabeu stadium clutching superstar
Cristiano Ronaldo's hand.
Mohsen, meanwhile, is thankful his soccer links helped him find work
in a country where unemployment still runs at over 20 percent. He
hopes his experience coaching in Spain will one day benefit Syria as
well.
"Maybe in future I can take this information for my country," he
smiles.
(Writing by Sarah White; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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