WITH the return of the Premier League season tomorrow marking the beginning of the end of the summer, it’s little surprise that so many of them cropped up in Marbella.
Chelsea’s Cole Palmer finally had what most Premier League footballers spend the season dreaming about: six uninterrupted weeks beneath the Costa del Sol sun.
There were no matches to prepare for, no recovery sessions and no training-ground alarms.
After an injury-hit season cost him a place in England’s World Cup squad, the Chelsea star had been handed his first proper summer holiday in years.
At first, the empty calendar felt like a luxury.
By the end of it, Palmer had discovered something unexpected: even Marbella can become boring.
“To be fair, I got bored after like six weeks,” the 24-year-old admitted.
“I was sat in Marbella thinking, ‘I want to go back in’, and I never thought I’d think that.”
It was an extraordinary confession from a footballer spending his summer in one of Europe’s most desirable resorts, and one unlikely to earn much sympathy from anyone working through the Spanish heat.
Most holidaymakers leave Marbella wishing they had booked another week. Palmer was looking at the Mediterranean and longing for preseason.
But while the Chelsea ace may have grown tired of paradise, the rest of the celebrity world appeared to be heading in the opposite direction.
Premier League rivals trained beneath the Costa del Sol sun, Hollywood stars returned to their villas in the Marbella hills and some of the biggest names in global sport took to the waters of the Balearics.
From Erling Haaland and Phil Foden in Marbella to David Beckham sharing an Ibiza lunch with Michael Jordan, Spain has once again become the summer playground of the rich, famous and almost impossible to overlook.
Manchester City goal machine Erling Haaland is already so familiar with Marbella that describing him as a tourist feels increasingly inaccurate.
The Norwegian owns a multimillion-euro property in the area, while his father, former Manchester City and Leeds player Alf-Inge Haaland, also has a home on the Costa del Sol.
At 6ft 4in, with unmistakable blond hair and an enthusiasm for eye-catching cars, Haaland has little chance of slipping unnoticed through Puerto Banús.
Marbella nevertheless offers him something increasingly rare for one of football’s biggest stars: a familiar base where he can recover, train and briefly escape the weekly glare of the Premier League.
His Manchester City teammate Phil Foden was also seen keeping fit in Marbella, suggesting that the footballers arriving on the coast were not spending every afternoon beside the pool.
Aston Villa and England midfielder Morgan Rogers, meanwhile, was spotted at Puente Romano on Marbella’s Golden Mile.
The five-star resort has become one of the area’s most dependable footballer magnets.
Its guests can move between private suites, tennis courts and restaurants including Nobu, Cipriani and Dani García’s Leña without leaving the complex, useful for Premier League players who want privacy but have no intention of disappearing completely.
Yet some of Marbella’s best-known faces can no longer really be described as holidaymakers.
Eva Longoria has established one of the resort’s strongest Hollywood connections after creating a family home in the exclusive Sierra Blanca neighbourhood.
The Desperate Housewives actress renovated a villa in the hills above Marbella and has repeatedly described the property as her ‘oasis’.
She spends part of the year there with her husband, José Bastón, and their son Santiago.
Instagram/@evalongoria
That makes Longoria less an occasional celebrity visitor and more a part-time local, albeit one with a rather more glamorous address than most.
Glen Johnson was another familiar footballing face back on the Costa del Sol, although Sotogrande is hardly a holiday destination for the former Liverpool and England defender.
He bought his €3.5 million home there in 2009, while still playing in the Premier League.
The villa has seven bedrooms, a swimming pool, a cinema and a solarium. Its garden also looks directly onto the Almenara golf course, so Johnson does not have far to travel when he wants a round.
A little farther along the coast, Jason Derulo provided the soundtrack to one of Puerto Banús’s biggest nights of the summer.
The American singer performed at Mirage Marbella on August 2, with tracks such as Talk Dirty, Wiggle and Savage Love among the hits familiar to the crowd.
The celebrity activity was not confined to southern Spain.
David and Victoria Beckham spent part of their summer moving between Ibiza and Formentera on a yacht reportedly worth around €18 million.
Their daughter Harper joined them, along with son Romeo and his girlfriend Kim Turnbull.
The family were seen swimming and relaxing on board before stopping for lunch at Es Molí de Sal in Formentera. The restaurant occupies an old salt mill beside the sea and has long been a popular destination for visitors arriving by boat.
Getting there proved slightly less straightforward for Victoria.
She crossed the rocky shoreline in leopard-print heels while David, who had sensibly gone barefoot, helped her keep her balance.
Victoria and Harper later called at Annie’s Ibiza, the vintage clothing shop known for attracting models, musicians and stylists during the summer season.
Lila Moss was spotted at the same boutique during her own visit to Ibiza.
The 23-year-old was following familiar family territory. Her mother, Kate Moss, has been closely associated with the island since the 1990s, when her holidays and nights out regularly made the British press.
The Beckhams were not the only major sporting names seen in the Balearics.
Michael Jordan arrived aboard M’Brace, a superyacht measuring around 75 metres.
The vessel was seen off Mallorca before travelling on towards Ibiza. At that size, it was attracting attention well before anyone had confirmed that the six-time NBA champion was on board.
Jordan later met David Beckham over lunch at Cala Jondal, bringing together two of the most commercially successful sports stars in history.
The encounter also carried a curious numerical connection.
When Beckham joined Real Madrid in 2003, he selected the number 23 shirt, the number Jordan had transformed into a global sporting symbol during his years with the Chicago Bulls.
Beckham has previously admitted feeling starstruck when meeting the six-time NBA champion.
In Ibiza, however, the pair appeared relaxed as they greeted each other and enjoyed lunch with Victoria Beckham and Jordan’s wife, Yvette Prieto.
Spain’s summer celebrity trail has therefore offered almost everything: footballers who became bored with relaxing, Hollywood stars living in the Marbella hills, a pop concert in Puerto Banús, Victoria Beckham climbing across rocks in heels and two sporting legends meeting over lunch beside the Mediterranean.
Marbella gets the final word
The attention returned to Marbella on August 9 for the Starlite Gala, hosted by Antonio Banderas and Sandra García-Sanjuán.
Michael Bublé, Plácido Domingo, Estrella Morente and Victoria Federica were among the guests, giving the Costa del Sol one more A-list night before the summer began to wind down.
The famous names change each year, but Spain’s appeal does not: sunshine, privacy when they want it and plenty of places to be seen when they do not.
For almost everyone involved, that seemed to be exactly the point of the holiday.
Except Cole Palmer. After six weeks in Marbella, he was ready to go back to work. Given everyone else still arriving, he may be the only one.
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