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The Enzo Pérez of the 30s: Antonio Cuila Sastre, the first multifunctional of Argentine football

2021-09-10T15:46:54.119Z


Crack and idol of Independiente between 1931 and 1942, he played in all positions, he even went to goal.


Oscar barnade

09/10/2021 12:34 PM

  • Clarín.com

  • sports

Updated 09/10/2021 12:34 PM

"Antonio Sastre complete player / great striker and great defender / all the positions of our football / he occupied and always the best."

The tango

Antonio “Cuila” Sastre

was written by the journalist, cartoonist, writer and historian

Isabelino Espinosa

, who saw him play and had him as an idol.

Many years from now, some modern song will remember Enzo Pérez, River's versatile player, who recently scored goals in two games in a row, the last one in the area as a center forward.

From his position of engagement in adolescence, he later prevailed as a right-wing midfielder, but also as a right winger, lane, midfielder, inside right or left, double five, central marker, stopper, libero and ... goalkeeper.

Eight decades later, it is worth remembering that the first great multi-functional player in Argentine soccer was the great Independiente player (1931-42), who even has a bust at the entrance to Morumbí de San Pablo.

There are hardly any witnesses to that time.

He is described in the chronicles of the media and of those who saw him play.

In 1938, in the magazine

La Cancha

, there was an article entitled

El Máximo

.

Talk about Tailor.

"A man who resists the most rigorous analysis and the one who for the longest time has shown to know how to perform in any position always with singular efficiency, always penetrating to praise and with an experience that seems to be granted by a Higher Order", highlights one of the paragraphs.

Note from the magazine La Cancha from January 1938, highlighting the figure of Antonio Sastre.

Later, he affirms: “He plays in the attack and is an attacker.

Play defense, defend and attack.

The testimony of the spectator who knows, will recognize our affirmation ”.

Sastre played in Independiente 362 games from his debut in 1931 until he went to play for São Paulo in Brazil in 1943.

His original position was 8, a right inside with a route, panorama and goal.

Since 1931 he began to fill other positions: that year he played three games of left half (a midfielder at the height of five) and another two left inside (spearhead, almost in the area).

The rest, in their original position.

Antonio Sastre, crack stamp.

Almost half of the 362 games were played as the left half (174), although he did not have a 10 on his back because at that time numbers were not yet used in Argentine football.

Meanwhile, another 127 were entreala or right interior.

Those two were his usual positions.

Between 1936 and 1938 he played 36 games as a right half, that is, he marked the right wing.

In 1937 and 1938 he completed two more games in that position.

He also played 14 games as a right pointer from 1937. In his debut in the position, Independiente beat Estudiantes 1-0 with one of his goals.

Six times he played as a left half, three as a center half (that is, number 5) and once, in a Cup match, as a center forward.

Vicente de la Mata, Arsenio Erico and Antonio Sastre, two-time champions with Independiente in 1938 and 1939.

Also, like Enzo Pérez, he went to goal,

although not from the start. Just a few minutes twice. On December 29, 1938, against Peñarol (3-1) for the Ricardo Aldao Cup, goalkeeper Fernando Bello was injured. As they could not find a player from the fourth division, Bignone, he saved for four minutes. Then the kid came in, but then Bello returned since the referee did not allow him to continue cutting, arguing that Sastre had already done it.

Later, for the First Division championship, on May 25, 1941 against San Lorenzo (1-2), Bello was also injured (he suffered a cut on his head) and for 14 minutes Sastre was on the fence until the goalkeeper returned. . "And the game resumed, putting on the fence guard jacket, the one-man band, Sastre, and Independiente with ten men continued to act in the same way," wrote journalist Alfredo Omar in

La Cancha

magazine

.

In volume 3 of the book

La Historia del Fútbol Argentino

, by Editorial Eiffel and published in 1958, there is a semblance of Sastre. It is not signed but the work was made by the great journalists of the time (Borocotó, Fioravanti, Ardigó, Frascara, among others) who saw it in action. There they say: “Antonio Sastre, the popular Cuila, with his apparently weak physique was the only player who showed effective crack skills in any location on the team. He was - according to Herminio Masantonio once declared - the best insider who ever played alongside him ”. Maestro Ernesto Duchini put together a podium and put him ahead of Maradona and Pelé.

Masantonio, the great scorer of Huracán, shared 10 matches in the National Team. Of the 34 games with the blue and white, in 30 he was a starter, 11 times he played as a right entreala, another 11 in a left half and 8 in a right half, especially in the 1937 America Cup in which he was one of the figures of that title that Argentina achieved after beating Brazil 2-0 in the tiebreaker with two goals from Vicente de la Mata. They say that that day, Sastre told him: "Kid, today we make a cape." And that nickname stayed with him forever.

Oscar Sastre, his brother, tells it in the book

Rojo Pasión

published by Clarín in 2002: “Antonio was a player on the entire pitch.

He performed in all positions and always did it well.

Four, eight, ten ”.

And he adds: · He was a strategist who had a great command of the ball and a remarkable knowledge of the game, very complete ”.

Antonio Sastre, already a veteran, in a note with Clarín in 2009.

That is why he also became an idol of San Pablo, a club in which he played four seasons and was crowned champion three times.

They say that at the farewell dinner, the president of the club, Cícero Pompeu de Toledo, said:

"If one day a soccer player were to be nominated for the Nobel Prize, all of Brazil would vote for Antonio Sastre."

Even Pelé was encouraged to say at the Ezeiza airport: “You should take a picture of that man, not me.

Because on the court he was better than me ”.

Or Rei

had arrived with the Santos squad and the Independiente squad in Argentina and among those who waited for the squads was Antonio Sastre, since at that time his son, also Antonio, played at Rojo.

That is why at the entrance to the Morumbí stadium in San Pablo there is a bust of Antonio Sastre, the first multi-functional player, the Enzo Pérez of the dawn of professionalism.

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Source: clarin

All news articles on 2021-09-10

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