El Brujo Manuel died, the man who was cabal of the National Team, Independent and Students

05/07/2021 20:06

• Clarín.com

• sports

Updated 05/07/2021 20:06

El

Brujo Manuel

died this Friday at the age of 60 after fighting the coronavirus.

The man who was a cabal of the Argentine National Team, Estudiantes de La Plata and Independiente, among others, did not resist after being hospitalized for more than a month.

It had become a charm for various soccer teams.

I served people on a ranch in Gorina.

He was a healer.

It helped people, it gave them hope.

He was born in Tucumán and from a very young age he dedicated himself to assisting those who needed it most.

For more than two decades he attended from Monday to Thursday.

But he did not charge: there was a piggy bank where people left money or valuables - or non-perishable food - at will.

Manuel attended Ricardo Fort, Eduardo Duhalde and Juan Sebastián Verón.

It was in Estudiantes where he became famous in the soccer environment.

He did "energetic cleanings" in the locker room, on the playing field or in an arc that fans could consider was "enchanted."

The Brujo Manuel has just passed away.

He was present, as one more of the delegation, in the journey of Independiente in the Copa Sudamericana 2017. Our hug and condolences to his family and friends pic.twitter.com/RsHhPJdB43

- CA Independiente ⚪ (@Independienters) May 7, 2021

Later it was summoned by Independiente.

And he was during the entire campaign that made Ariel Holan's team champion of the South American Cup.

That was the peak of his fame in football and in the media.

And he was crowned on a trip to Quito to accompany Jorge Sampaoli's Argentine National Team.

There, the national team played their ticket to the World Cup in Russia.

It started 1-0 down, but Lionel Messi appeared with a hat-trick and Argentina qualified for the World Cup.

In the celebration of one of Rosario's crack goals, Brujo Manuel is seen in the background.

"It had a lot to do -with the classification-", Claudio Chiqui Tapia, the president of the AFA who summoned Manuel to accompany the National Team, later declared. 

"The selection was bad. They played well, but there were some things they did for which they couldn't score goals, I went, unlocked that and that's it

," said Brujo Manuel in dialogue with Télam.

"That negative energy came from a promise broken by the national team many years ago," he later said in reference to the alleged unfulfilled promise of the 1986 champion squad to the Virgin of Tilcara, Jujuy.

El Brujo Manuel was a fleeting character in football, but in Gorina he summoned people who needed hope and he gave it to them.