Peru cries for its soccer team, the only thing that unites it

Peru fans witness the game against Australia from Lima last Monday. SEBASTIAN CASTANEDA (REUTERS)

Peru had decreed a holiday.

There were no schools or open public entities.

The country hoped to celebrate in style qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar in the playoff match against Australia.

The team, however, lost on penalties.

Advíncula, one of the players who failed from 11 meters, hid his head inside his shirt and his teammates had to guide him like a blind man to the locker room.

His pain was the reflection of an entire nation.

The feeling in the country is that all parties are born and organized to steal;

So despite the mediocrity of the local league and the fact that there are no great local soccer players in the main teams in the world, the national team is the only institution that gives hope to Peruvians.

More information

Redmayne's dance disorients Peru and qualifies Australia for the World Cup

The country is experiencing a permanent political crisis that has permeated the entire society.

Uncertainty is the general feeling.

In the last four years, five presidents have paraded through the Government Palace.

Last year's elections between Pedro Castillo and Keiko Fujimori split the country in two: the rural against the urban, the rich against the poor.

There seemed to be no glue to hold such a nation together.

Or if?

One and the other, who seemed irreconcilable enemies, put on the national team shirt.

The entire nation united around the team coached by Ricardo Gareca, surely the most popular character in Peru.

Without great talents, he qualified for the World Cup in Russia four years ago after 36 absences and in 2021 he reached the semifinals of the Copa América.

It was the example that you can do a lot with little.

If politics divided Peruvians, the boys from Gareca achieved the opposite effect.

In the South American group they started badly and it was very difficult for them to travel to Qatar, but in the last games they achieved surprising results, such as beating Colombia.

Qualifying as fifth gave them the option of playing it to a game.

All this enthusiasm was brought together by striker Gianluca Lapadula, the son of a Peruvian immigrant born in Italy and nationalized on the run in 2020. Lapadula is the reflection of the team: he is not fast, nor particularly technical, nor does he have a great shot, but he scores goals .

He is always well placed.

In the middle of qualifying he fractured his nasal septum and has been wearing a black silicone protector.

The protector was a big seller for Halloween costumes.

And prisoners in a Lima jail have made hundreds

of ceramic

The bakers designed breads with the faces of the most charismatic players.

The defeat of the team in Doha, where thousands of Peruvians traveled, sank their spirits.

More information

The country that kept sinking

All that was waiting on the horizon has vanished.

An hour before the game, the manager of economic studies of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru commented that if the Andean country qualified for the World Cup, he expected a favorable impact of sales in the textile and services sector, as happened when Peru arrived in Russia.

He said there would be more demand for shirts and air travel to Qatar.

Football has been cruel to a country that this time did deserve a joy.

Thousands of ready-made t-shirts will remain unsold, but it doesn't matter.

“We have nothing to blame our team for: they have given us more joy than the political class.

Sales projections will no longer be given.

The economic reactivation is not their responsibility, but that of the authorities, and it is urgent that they assume it," said a spokeswoman for the businessmen, Susana Saldaña.

Peruvians, after this experience, know that, at least, something unites them and that with the example of Gareca and his boys, the country could be transformed.

You can follow EL PAÍS Deportes on