Why does Marc Cucurella have long hair? The touching reason behind footballer’s iconic look

MARC Cucurella has one of the most recognisable silhouettes in world football because somebody asked him to grow his hair long. The curls have followed the World Cup-winning Spain defender from Barcelona to the Bernabeu, and he has no plans to lose them. Marc Cucurella celebrating winning the 2026 World Cup Credit: Getty He shares three children with partner Claudia Rodriguez Credit: Amazon Prime Why does Marc Cucurella have long hair? It goes back to a touchline in Catalonia, and a mum who kept losing track of which players were her sons. In 2024, Cucurella told Spain’s La Voz de Galicia: “My mother let our hair grow so long because she’d get distracted when she took us to play football, and to tell us apart, she recognised us by our hair. Sign up for the Football newsletter Thank you! “We played in the youth teams, and I’ve kept it ever since.” He added: “I’m cutting it little by little, trimming the ends and styling it myself. “I’ve always had it like this, and now it also suits my personality, my style, and well, we’ll keep it like this for now.” Does Cucurella keep his hair untied for his son? After Spain’s World Cup win, a story swept social media claiming Cucurella refuses to tie his hair back so that his eldest son Mateo, who is autistic, can pick him out on the pitch. But numerous fact-checks have turned up no verified interview, statement or documentary in which either he or his partner Claudia Rodriguez connects the hairstyle to their son. What is certain is that the curls came first – Cucurella had the same hairdo for years before Mateo was born in 2019. Most read in Football Who is Cucurella’s son Mateo? Mateo is the eldest of the couple’s three children, born in 2019, followed by siblings Rio and Bella in 2021 and 2023 respectively. It was Claudia who first noticed he was developing differently. She told Spanish TV programme Mothers: From the Heart: “With Mateo, I noticed something was going on when he was 13 months old, when he started going to nursery. “We noticed differences compared to other children, but since he was my first baby I wasn’t really sure if it was normal. Maybe he would just take longer [to develop] than other kids.” She added: “He didn’t make eye contact, he didn’t respond to his name, he was very ‘chilled out’. He didn’t care what we were doing, he wouldn’t pay attention to you… “But based on what I knew about autism back then, I didn’t think that was the cause. Because Mateo is super affectionate and it just didn’t add up.” Mateo was diagnosed with autism in 2022. Cucurella said: “Nobody teaches you how to be a father, but in the end, you see it. “An autistic child does not understand things like his siblings, you have to learn to understand him. “It affects him a lot, you don’t see him well and you don’t know how to help him. “He didn’t do well in conventional school, he got upset, he wasn’t happy. He didn’t adapt, he stayed crying all the time.” He added: “We couldn’t find a way to help him until we found another school in London and we have improved a lot. “They help us there, we have talks, you learn to handle it and you understand it. He makes himself understood, but you need to know him.” It shapes where he plays, too – Cucurella explained he looks at whether a prospective club’s city has the right schools and therapies, and Madrid has what Mateo needs. Cucurella signed for Real Madrid on June 15 on a six-year deal running to 2032, in a move reported to be worth up to £52million. Comment now