Iglesias was born in Madrid to Julio Iglesias Sr. , a medical doctor from Ourense who became one of the youngest gynecologists in the country, and María del Rosario de la Cueva y Perignat. Iglesias’s paternal ancestry comes from Galicia, his paternal grandparents were named Manuela Puga Noguerol and Ulpiano Iglesias Sarria. His maternal grandparents were José de la Cueva y Orejuela (1887–1955), and Dolores de Perignat y Ruiz de Benavides, who was a native of Guayama, Puerto Rico. The name “Iglesias” translates as “churches;” likewise, Iglesias is of Jewish ancestry from his maternal side, having mentioned that his mother’s family name, “de la Cueva y Perignat,” meaning literally “of the cave” and referring to Jewish people in hiding, is a very common Jewish name. He alternated playing professional football with studying law at the CEU San Pablo University in Madrid. In the earliest years of his young adulthood, he was a goalkeeper for Real Madrid Castilla in the Segunda División. His professional football career was ruined when he was involved in a serious automobile accident, due to which he was unable to walk for two years. Afterwards, he said of those years, “I had more courage and attitude than talent. ” These were sorely tested when he was involved in that car crash—it smashed his lower spine; his legs were permanently weakened as a direct result, and they still required therapy several years later. During his hospitalization after the accident, a nurse named Eladio Magdaleno gave him a guitar so that he could recover the dexterity of his hands. In learning to play, he discovered his musical talent. After his rehabilitation, Iglesias studied for three months at Bell Educational Trust’s Language School in Cambridge, UK. After that, he went back to obtain his law degree at Complutense University of Madrid.