Pablo Pérez was champion four times with Boca and once with Newell's
.
They made him a video game to avoid yellow cards because it was common for him to be cautioned.
He was a reference for Xeneize and an emblem for Lepra, a club in which, technically, he played his last game as a professional.
This Friday
Fernando Chiófalo
, the president of
Sarmiento de Junín
, his current team, announced that the midfielder decided to put an end to his career.
"Personal issues"
, was the argument explained by the manager given by the 38-year-old footballer, who a week ago barely played 'on loan' for Newell's in the friendly against Lionel Messi's Inter Miami, where he started.
Pablo Pérez in Sarmiento
"This week we met with Pablo Pérez and he told us that he was not going to continue playing due to personal and emotional problems. We tried to get him to continue and he didn't want to
," Chiófalo reported at a press conference.
According to statistician Silvio Maverino, Pérez's career yellow card count stopped at
189
, so the average was one card every
2.3 games
.
The warnings are divided as follows: 90 in Newell's (he is the player with the most yellow cards in the history of Leprosy), 56 in Boca, 17 in Independiente, 13 in Unión, 8 in Emelec of Ecuador and 5 in Málaga of Spain .
For its part, in the Argentine National Team (one match) and in Sarmiento (3 matches) were the only shirts where he did not receive warnings.
From 'easy' yellow to challenging time
Much of the Argentine soccer universe will always associate his name with kicks, arguments, anger and cards.
However, Pablo Pérez's career deserves a somewhat more exhaustive and less biased review.
Perhaps then it will become evident to the general public that the midfielder was a quality footballer (beyond the limitations that his physical condition imposed on him in his last period).
His criteria for playing explains his long journey with the red and black jacket that began in the formative divisions and had his first milestone in the First Division on December 2, 2006, when he debuted in a 2-2 draw with Godoy Cruz on the penultimate date of the Tournament. Opening of that year.
That day,
Nery Pumpido
included him as a starter in a team that had gone 10 games without a win and was second to last in the table.
In that first cycle, it was difficult for him to establish himself and find continuity.
That's why he went to Ecuador to play for Emelec in 2009, but he didn't settle there either.
He then chose to take a step back: he was loaned in 2010 to Unión, which was active in the Primera B Nacional.
He was a figure in the team led by Frank Darío Kudelka, which was runner-up in that competition and achieved promotion.
With that accolade and with more hours of flying he returned to the club that he sees as his home.
He earned a place as a starter during Javier Torrente's brief management, kept it with Diego Cagna and acquired a leading role in Martino's team that was not only domestic champion, but also reached the semifinals of the 2013 Copa Libertadores (fell on penalties against Atlético Mineiro, eventual champion).
So he chose to leave again, as he had done a few years before to Ecuador.
This time he headed to Spain to play in Malaga.
In those days, the Philadelphia Union of the American Major League Soccer had also been looking for him.
Beyond the economic progress that this transfer allowed him, the sporting balance was far from optimal because neither the German Bernd Schuster nor Javi Gracia, his successor, took it into account too much.
Then the chance arose to return to the country to play for Boca.
“He is a sleeping giant who has to wake up.
Playing for Boca is synonymous with fighting for the championship and that is a challenge that I took on,” he told Clarín after signing his contract, on loan for 18 months, on December 29, 2014. At that time, Xeneize, directed by Rodolfo Arruabarrena, had not obtained a degree for more than two years.
In his four years at Boca, Pérez was domestic champion four times: he won the 2015 competition, those of the 2016/17 and 2017/18 seasons, and the 2015 Argentine Cup. He was important in the Arruabarrena team, to the point that The club decided to buy his pass in September 2015, in the first option that contemplated the transfer agreed with Málaga (paid one million dollars).
And he turned out to be a key piece for Guillermo Barros Schelotto.
In total, he played 119 games, scored 14 goals and wore the captain's ribbon 17 times.
That good performance earned him, at the age of 32, his first call-up to the national team: it was in October 2017, when Jorge Sampaoli summoned him for the matches against Peru and Ecuador for the Russia 2018 Qualifiers. In those duels he did not add any minutes.
Instead, he did so in March 2018, when he came on for Éver Banega in the second half of what ended up being a 6-1 thrashing of Spain in Madrid.
It was his only experience with the albiceleste jacket.
Despite his performance, the memory that some Xeneizes fans have of him is not entirely pleasant.
In those years of high exposure, the midfielder earned the reputation of being a rude and intemperate guy: he was reprimanded 57 times and sent off another four.
Three of them, for double yellow;
the fourth (and the most remembered), in a Superclásico against River in La Bombonera due to a kick in the abdomen of the Colombian Eder Álvarez Balanta when only 11 minutes had been played.
In his first two cycles at Newell's, he had only seen red once in 135 games.
In this camera you can see Pablo Pérez's kick, for which he was expelled.
Balanta was reprimanded.
pic.twitter.com/OrQS5EHHqG
— eltrece (@eltreceoficial) April 24, 2016
It was not only in the games that his verbiage was exposed.
In May 2017, the midfielder was kicked out of training by Gustavo Barros Schelotto (he was in charge of the job) after he kicked Tomás Fernández hard during a soccer practice against a youth team.
“It was a normal kick.
I thought he was a grumpy old man, because the kid broke it and I could never stop him.
There were more infractions, as in every practice, and we apologized in all of them.
But in that last one he was tired, drowned and that happened,” he justified.
Almost a year later, in April 2018, it was once again in the eye of the storm.
The man from Rosario had been one of those targeted by the fans after the defeat against River in the final of the Argentine Super Cup.
Three weeks after that setback, he scored the decisive goal on the hour in a 2-1 victory over Talleres in La Bombonera and in his celebration, he shot into the lower audience.
“Fucking, fucking, his mother's pussy,” he shouted.
“It was one of my worst games, and we were coming from days in which they gave us blows and blows.
That's why I ended up exploding.
But what I did is not justified.
My insult was shameful,” he acknowledged.
And he clarified: “I was upset with one fan, not with everyone.
"He had already insulted me at halftime and in the goal, after difficult weeks, I exploded."
🔙 Xeneize was looking for the two-time championship in the 2017-18 #Superliga.
Godoy Cruz threatened to take away the tournament and on matchday 21 Guillermo's team achieved an agonizing 2-1 victory against Talleres with a goal from Pablo Pérez, remembered for his unusual venting against the local crowd.
pic.twitter.com/JNV0IxTzRf
— MuyBoca (@muybocaweb) February 1, 2020
Another match against River would mark the end of his history in Boca: the unforgettable final of the 2018 Copa Libertadores. He was one of the players injured by the attack on the bus before the frustrated match at the Monumental (he had to be taken by ambulance to the Otamendi Sanatorium for a wound in the left eye).
And he bore a good part of the weight for the defeat in Madrid.
That was his last game at the club.
In January 2019, he moved to Independiente, which had already looked for him in mid-2016 (Barros Schlotto had asked him to stay).
Rojo's coach was Ariel Holan, with whom he had starred in a public counterpoint the previous year, after the coach doubted that Boca, already champion, was going to do his best in a match against Huracán, with which the team of Avellaneda was competing for a place in the Copa Sudamericana.
“Anyone who was a footballer knows that we always go out to win.
Maybe in hockey they don't feel that.
“Those people have to keep their mouths shut,” the player had snapped.
Pérez and Holan signed the peace agreement.
But the coach did not last long in his position.
He was replaced by Sebastián Beccacece, with whom the midfielder had a good relationship.
That did not stop the long-haired coach from deciding to exclude him from the team two weeks after the Rosario's tantrum in the Libertadores de América locker room during halftime of a match with Lanús.
That fever led him to rebuke several classmates and break a blackboard.
“Pablo is a very cute crazy man and sometimes he doesn't control his impulses.
I have an extraordinary relationship with him;
of affection.
But he made a mistake and I have to go down a line and indicate the values to the team,” explained the coach.
Photo Juan Manuel Foglia - Clarín
After those two punishing matches, Pérez returned to play, although there was little time left in his cycle.
“It's obvious that I'm going to retire at Newell's.
It was the club that gave me the opportunity to grow, to be a professional footballer;
He educated me in many aspects.
I hope I can return to give back a little of all that.
At some point it will happen,” he was excited in October 2019.
In February 2020 he was released from Independiente, something that did not sit very well with him.
“With the previous coach (Beccacece) I had had a problem and there was wear and tear.
"He was a little hurt, but he understood that the team had performed better in the last game, playing in a way that it had not been playing, and he realized that it did not fit into the scheme of the new technical director (Lucas Pusineri)", he justified. Vice President Pablo Moyano.
That acrimonious departure was the previous step to his return to Newell's after six years.
"Hello champion.
We were waiting for you,” said the message that the club published on its social media accounts on February 6, 2020 to welcome him.
As the number eight was being used by Braian Rivero, he chose the number 26 for his shirt, the same one he had worn in his first match in the First Division in 2006. Of course: before his debut he had to meet a suspension date that he owed for having been Expelled in his last game at Independiente against Boca.
At home again, he joined the group of leaders who were then part of the leper team: Maxi Rodríguez, Nacho Scocco, Fernando Belluschi, Mauro Formica.
Since they left, he remained the undisputed symbol.
In recent months he has dealt with injuries that did not allow him to play 90 minutes in a row and sidelined him from several games.
Despite these difficulties, he continued to show touches of his category.
Like in a match against Godoy Cruz, last August, in which he scored an incredible goal.
Straight to Puskás!
Pablo Pérez with an extraordinary scissors ties the game after Ojeda's goal and now @Newells and #GodoyCruz are 1 to 1.pic.twitter.com/PG1QaU9XqH
— Professional Football League (@LigaAFA) August 27, 2022
He also displayed his temperament, so that no one would forget who he is.
In a closed-door classic with Central in May 2022, he stomped and threw a ball at a drone that was flying over the Gigante de Arroyito playing field with a rogue flag.
After that episode, the company Carpincho Games developed an online game called Pobla Peres vs Drone Invaders, in which the Newell's midfielder had to destroy drones with balls while he tried to avoid yellow cards that fell from the device.
Just after another classic, which Central won 1-0 with a goal from youth Alejo Véliz in July 2022, Pérez said that he had considered the possibility of hanging up his boots.
“If I had won, I swear I would retire in December.
Now that I lost, I'm going to continue.
I felt good physically.
I thought I was going to arrive with what was fair and the truth is that I felt very good,” he said after that setback.
However, since then he suffered a sprained knee and had to go through a very painful moment: the death of his father on September 22.
He reappeared in the 1-0 victory over Unión in Santa Fe. “Playing did me good to relieve some of my anguish,” he said.
Retirement seemed close, again.
But he finally made the decision to sign the signature and extended his decision until the end of 2023. Actually until mid-January, when the club announced the end of the contract.
Newell's reports that the contract between the club and Pablo Pérez has ended.
The former captain, champion in 2013, completes his third cycle defending the red and black, which included 79 games and five goals since 2020.
Thank you for always defending the shirt to the fullest.
Success in this new one… pic.twitter.com/zbWFv9IWHd
— Newell's Old Boys (@Newells) January 14, 2024
He flirted with Unión de Santa Fe, but was captivated by Sergio Rondina and Sarmiento's project to stretch his career.
"I want to get well physically and be able to play all the games," was the footballer's wish.
But the coach's early departure due to the bad start, his trip to Miami and "personal issues" led to his surprising decision.