11/26/2020 1:20 PM
Clarín.com
Provinces
Updated 11/26/2020 1:20 PM
The story is known.
As a member of Los Cebollitas, Diego Maradona cried when he lost the final of the National Championship in Córdoba.
The team that had beaten his, in 1973, when Pelusa was only 13 years old, was Social Pinto, a club from Santiago del Estero.
Before the grief of the
Villa Fiorito
boy
that everyone was already talking about, it was the son of the champion's coach who came to calm him down.
The neighbor of Santiago del Estero today remembers those words that would end up being a historical premonition.
"
Don't cry, brother, if you're going to be the best player in the world
," César Ganem, son of champion team coach Elías Ganem, told Maradona.
And the Ten narrated it in his own autobiography.
Maradona's team, Los Cebollitas, lost their 200-game undefeated when they fell to Social Pinto of Santiago del Estero.
"With Los Cebollitas we lost the final of the National Championship in Córdoba. We were won by a team from Pinto, Santiago del Estero, led by Elías Ganem. His son, César, saw me so bitter that he told me: 'Don't cry, brother, yes you're going to be the best player in the world ... ", Maradona published in his book,
I am the Diego of the people
.
The story adds to so many anecdotes that have circulated since the sad news of the
death of Diego Armando Maradona was known
, at the house in the
San Andrés de Tigre neighborhood
where he was recovering from surgery.
And while the wake summons thousands of Argentines and foreigners to the Casa Rosada, in an interview with the Télam news agency, Ganem recalled that anecdote that he will transmit from generation to generation.
It was a
semifinal of the 1973 Evita National Games
between Los Cebollitas and the Santiago team Social Pinto.
The
defeat that day marked the end of 200 undefeated matches for Diego's team
.
Diego Maradona in Los Cebollitas.
(Book Francis Cornejo / Archive)
"We finished playing the semifinal in Embalse, Córdoba, and with another teammate we saw a little boy crying on the edge of the court, we knew it was Diego and we went to give him a hug and a kiss. He was so good that I could tell him go to be the best 10 in the world ", told Télam César Ganem.
"Today is a very sad day. We Argentines did not have dimension of what Diego is, for me without a doubt he was our cockade before the world," he said.
And he preferred to remember it in his days as a footballer: "He had an overwhelming personality, it was difficult, but as a friend or partner he was very good."
The days of Maradona's stay in Santiago del Estero were fun, Ganem recalled, indicating that "they were all in my family's house, there was a large living room with mattresses for everyone and there was a room where my grandmother slept; and in a At the moment, they went out, closed the padlock and left the old woman locked up for me. "
"Diego had those things, that spark that made him incredibly human and special," he recalled.
"The last time I saw him was in Tucumán when he was playing in Argentinos, I sent him a message with a waiter at a hotel in Tucumán and after 15 minutes I was in his room chatting, he asked me if he needed tickets and I told him that now We had taken it out. It was very nice, "he said.
AC
Look also
Diego Maradona died: the farewells of Peteco Carabajal, Los Nocheros and Bruno Arias
When Diego Maradona put on the shirts of the greats of Jujuy, Tucumán and Salta