Carlos the "Chinese" Luna speaks slowly, with the handbrake on. He doesn't seem to struggle to find the words, but he seems to enjoy taking his time for oral gearing. He even hardly vocalizes and pretends to speak with closed lips. Very similar to how another football idol, Roman Riquelme, does.
The vice president of Boca and Chino are also joined by San Fernando, the smallest municipality (not counting the islands) in the northern area of the Conurbano where Riquelme was born and Luna chose to live 15 years ago.
Horacio Rodríguez Larreta, Ciarletta candidate in San Fernando, Quiroz and the "Chino" Luna, maximum idol of Tigre. .
Luna, in addition, stood out like almost no other player defending the colors of Tigre, whose court is in San Fernando. One of Luna's biggest fans is (or was) Sergio Massa. From almost the moment El Chino moved to San Fernando, more than ten years ago, the super minister and presidential candidate of Unión por la Patria authorizes and disavows all the important decisions of the Tigre club.
El Chino is the Matador's second highest scorer. You can't walk the streets of San Fernando or Tigre without being asked for autographs or selfies. At the club, Massa offered him to be Sporting Director, with a long-term plan to train boys and detect promises that can then play in the First Division.
Something did not like the Chinese who, in less than two years decided to resign. "It was nothing punctual, but a lack of commitment to what we had agreed with the authorities. I had been warning the president of the club (Ezequiel Magariño) and then Sergio summoned me to his office and I communicated it to him, face to face. Everything was fine, he even proposed me to continue, but I did not like where the project that we had started with the boys was outlined, "he tells Clarín.
El Chino Luna heads the list of councilors of Tigre on the ballot of Horacio Rodríguez Larreta.
A few months later he received another proposal, from people linked to a close friend of Massa who now seems to overact an adversity that would not be such: Horacio Rodriguez Larreta. The candidate for mayor that the head of the Buenos Aires Government has in San Fernando, Agustina Ciarletta, seduced him to also try to score goals in politics.
El Chino accepted the invitation and put on a T-shirt again, this time that of Cambiemos, to head the list of councilors.
"Everyone knows me, knows how I am and what I think. For years I have been working with the kids in several neighborhoods. And everything I hear from the Kirchnerist story is a lie, a deception. Almost everyone notices. I appreciate Sergio, but Larreta's project is the one that I think we must support to dream again and leave behind so much poverty and backwardness," he tells Clarín in a study of Canal Somos, of the Conurbano.
What if Massa had offered to run to support his candidacy for President? "I can't support something we all see; The lie of the story of Kirchnerism. That would be a disgrace. Everyone chooses where they want to be. With our eyes, it is impossible not to notice what is happening in the slums. Just get out of the car, walk and talk to the kids. What Kirchnerism assures is an invention. There is no future or development with the story. I was always committed to offering help to the little ones. I did it long before I was a candidate," he says.
El Chino Luna cannot walk in the streets of the municipalities of Tigre and San Fernando, where the court is, without signing autographs or taking selfies.
The champion of the 2019 tournament with Tigre, rants about "how they engrossed and deceived retirees. They shit on them. In part, I decided to be a candidate when I became aware that the next batch of retirees, the one who worked under the three Kirchner governments, will be the first in which the vast majority do not own their homes. It's going to take decades to change the mess they made."
The striker of Tigre, Carlos El Chino Luna, with the mask given to him by a neighbor of Virreyes, neighborhood of San Fernando where he lives and will be a candidate
When he is told that with the management of Mauricio Macri things not only did not improve but also had bad results, El Chino clarifies that his commitment is "with Larreta", beyond belonging to the PRO, the party that Macri founded.
"Everyone has a certain share of responsibility, but the one that governed 20 years was Kirchnerism, which has put the humble in decline. Social assistance became a business that perpetuates poverty and lack of possibilities."
M.R