Chelsea’s Colombia winger lost his father when he was four in frightening circumstances but ‘Shorty’ was desperate to be a footballer – despite the efforts of his exasperated grandmother • Chelsea sign £27m Juan Cuadrado

Perched on Colombia’s northern coast, Necoclí is a paradise fringed with palm trees, deep blue Caribbean waters and a lush tropical rainforest that tumbles from the mountains on to unspoilt golden sands.

But over the last few decades this haven of serenity and natural beauty has been trapped under a dark cloud of unimaginable horror. It has kept the tourists away and left 70% of the town’s population victims of violence. Few have been spared, not even Necoclí’s most famous son, the new Chelsea winger Juan Guillermo Cuadrado.

It was here on these dusty backstreets that as a little boy, Cuadrado’s early life was shattered by the thunder of gunfire. Aged four years old, he hid trembling under his bed as the bullets flew outside. When he crawled from his hiding spot he found his mum Marcela drowned in tears. Guillermo, his dad, was dead.

Straddled in the gateway between South America and Panama, Necoclí lies in strategic territory where right-wing paramilitary death squads, drug cartels, the army and guerrillas have been locked in a struggle for control since the 1980s. The victims are ordinary folk and Guillermo, a lorry driver for a fizzy drinks company, became another senseless death.

For the struggling family he left behind, there were few opportunities. On the breadline Marcela desperately chased work and was forced to move south to Apartadó to work in the city’s banana factory.

Juan reluctantly followed and as mum scrubbed and packed bananas for export, the boy would sit beside her plastering little blue stickers on the fruit. It was a tough life and Juan was not happy. He called his grandmother in Necoclí to explain why. “My mum doesn’t love me,” he claimed. “She won’t let me play football.”

An agreement was struck and Juan returned to Necoclí to live with his grandparents but the boy’s errant ways left grandma Marcela Guerrero exasperated. “I sent him to school but he used to come home filthy having the day playing football,” she said. “I punished and hit him because of the mess he was in.”

The stark contrast between Cuadrado’s latest home, Stamford Bridge, and the muddy, rocky pitch at La Batea could not be starker. His grandma called it the swamp and Juan soon learned that to escape her beatings he needed to stay clean. Cunningly, he took to playing barefoot in his underpants.

In an open letter to the Colombian newspaper El Espectador during the World Cup last year, one of Cuadrado’s childhood friends, Juan Diego Ramírez, recalled the fractious relationship and how Marcela used to tie up Juan in the backyard to prevent him running off to play football.

Ramírez’s letter is at times nostalgic and mourns lost childhood years but he also tells of the hardships and poverty of their early lives. “Your father became another statistic of injustice, another number in this fucking war. You were born into a life of difficulty … you know more than anyone that having talent isn’t enough.”

Grandma Marcela went to extreme lengths to stop Juan playing football but it did not work, and inspired by his hero, the Brazilian striker Ronaldo, the youngster became known for his tricks, darting runs and finishing. Nicknamed “Shorty”, he began as a forward and despite being undernourished and all skin and bones, his innate talent earned him a place at a curiously named school in nearby Apartadó. It was called Manchester Fútbol Club and it was here, aged 12, where he started to take football more seriously.

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He came to the attention of Nelson Gallego, a renowned scout, and for the next few years, he would become like a father to Juan. “He lived with me for several years and I taught him how to be independent, how to manage these things, how to cook, study, everything like that,” Gallego tells the Guardian.

On the pitch, the coach also had a major influence and arranged for the 14-year-old to have a trial at Deportivo Cali. It did not work out and a trip to Buenos Aires around the same time also failed to convince. Juan was still a scrawny kid who no one believed had the strength to succeed.

After a short stint at the regional club Atlético Uraba where he began taking vitamins, Cuadrado was given a chance at second city side, Deportivo Independiente Medellín, where Gallego now worked.

The Medellín manager was Santiago Escobar, the brother of the murdered Colombian football idol Andrés, and one day in training with the youth team, he happened to walk by. “He was introverted, shy and didn’t talk a lot, but on the pitch he took his chance,” Escobar says. “I knew that with his talent he could end up playing for any team in the world.”

Now converted as a right wing-back, Juan quickly got the nickname Garrincha for his dazzling skills and unorthodox, awkward manoeuvres. And after just one year in the Colombian top flight in which DIM reached the championship final, Udinese snapped him up.

But the steamy tropics where Juan had grown up were a world away from the European winter the 21-year-old had now landed in. Despite learning Italian in just six months, Cuadrado struggled to settle in and, after spending almost two years on the sidelines, he joined Lecce on loan.

It was here on the heel of the Italian peninsula that Cuadrado made his mark. Lecce were relegated that season, but the 23-year-old sparkled on the right wing and Fiorentina were watching. In July 2012 La Viola swooped and he moved back north. Cuadrado had already broken into the Colombia squad, but was a fringe player until José Pekerman became manager in January 2012.

In the Argentinian’s first game in charge, Cuadrado ran amok as a right wing-back in a 2-0 win over Mexico. Later the same year, and now preferred in a more offensive position, he put in another man-of-the-match display against Brazil to cement his place in Colombia’s World Cup squad.

At Fiorentina, his form turned him into one of Serie A’s star turns and he finished last season with 11 league goals. His finest moment came in Brazil as Colombia marched to the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time. Pékerman had spent two years forging a system that encouraged individual brilliance within the confines of a strict team identity. Cuadrado embodied that spirit perfectly.

His role was not just to terrorise defences with his mazy runs and tricks weaved through a web of legs but also to liberate space in which his team-mate James Rodríguez could roam free. With one goal and four assists the Necoclí winger finished as one of the tournament’s revelations, and Barcelona came sniffing.

In the end Cuadrado stayed put with the Fiorentina manager, Vincenzo Montella, crafting his side around his star. But in pulling Cuadrado out from the right wing and into the centre as a support striker in a 3-5-1-1, he was starved of space in which to unleash his blistering pace. At Chelsea, at least, he will most surely return to his favoured spot on the right flank.

In full song he has the potential to be one of the most exhilarating and joyful players to grace the Premier League, while his discipline and versatility will surely endear him to the Chelsea manager, José Mourinho. Defenders hate him. He is the most fouled (87) player in Europe’s top five leagues this season.

He may initially struggle with the physical English game but, from Necoclí to London, Cuadrado has never been one to shy away from a challenge.