Rassy voice, ironic and witty.
Funny and full of anecdotes.
Some fun, others not so much.
As always, the only condition for telling or giving an opinion on any topic is not to betray any code, a religion that seems to be losing believers among the youngest footballers.
Coco Basile answers the phone as if he had always just woken up.
He starts pin-
ponging
with a soccer friend who was not a player and is a Nueva Chicago fan.
Fernando Niembro greets him from the Radio Colonia studio.
Without meaning to, the note becomes an almost intimate conversation.
Alfio lets go, laughs and makes people laugh.
The journalist and those accompanying him at the table do not interrupt.
Niembro and Basile seem to vibrate on the same page.
Stories that come and go.
Impressions of how it is played today in Argentina.
Obviously, a lot of Racing.
But also from Independiente, Boca and River.
Themes appear and disappear almost without a common thread.
Or yes, the football one.
Coco is relaxed and comfortable.
Relaxed and pleasant, the conversation flew at cruising speed.
As usually happens in tasty interviews, the plane enters an area of some turbulence.
Turbulence is given and taken naturally.
Basile spoke about what for him was a bed that Maradona and other players made for him, in his second stage as coach of the National Team.
"You left the national team, Riquelme shows solidarity with you and everyone says that between Messi and Maradona they make your bed," Niembro asked, as if he had not known the true reasons for years.
There is silence but without tension.
The seasoned driver insists: "
Was it because of Maradona and Messi?"
Coco reacts as he played: impulsive and to the bone.
"Nooooo, not Messi. He was a kid," he clarifies.
"Messi had nothing to do with it. He almost didn't speak. He was better than bread," he adds.
He doesn't say anything about Maradona, which is also saying a lot.
At the table, the journalists look at each other.
Silence resumes without asking permission.
It takes another handful of seconds.
Niembro seems to enjoy the moment and takes his time kicking the penalty.
"Were there players who operated to make you leave?"
.
El Coco is convinced that it is.
He doesn't say it like that, but that's how it is.
He allows himself to confess that there were some "
players"
who would have conspired to wear him down, although he would never allow himself to use those words.
"At that moment I knew that the waters were moving. I saw that there was a movement between the
players
and some managers, Argentina was going to qualify anyway.
I was rotten with a couple of players, whose name I will never tell you. ..It was a time to leave
," he said.
"Noooo, Messi is better than bread," Basile responded to a question from Fernando Niembro if the Inter Miami star and Diego Maradona made his bed.
"Gago was one of them
," Niembro surprises, again, as if knowing what El Coco knows and never said.
"Gago was in trouble because Mascherano was always the starter and he wanted to play," answers Coco.
Noton.
Among those accompanying the driver was still Maradona's thorn.
They wanted to know more.
As if he sensed the fever of study, Basile expanded without expanding too much.
"
Gago was then a friend of Maradona. I love Diego so much
. "
Coco, this time, did not want to go to the crossing.
After Coco Basile resigned in 2008, Diego Maradona was appointed coach of the National Team and stayed until the end of the 2010 World Cup in South Africa, where he was eliminated by Germany in the quarterfinals.
Diego won on the field and, on this one, also off it.
He also spoke about the former boss of the AFA, Julio Grondona.
"When I left it wasn't that it was in my first stage of the National Team (when it won two America Cups)."