Argentine soccer, three-time champion since this Sunday, draws on three main geographies, none like the possibly largest soccer factory in the world, Rosario and its area of influence in the province of Santa Fe: the city of Lionel Messi and Ángel Di María, authors of Argentina's three goals in the final against France –and also César Menotti, Marcelo Bielsa and Trinche Carlovich–, plus a radius of 100 kilometers where Jorge Valdano and Lionel Scaloni were born, among many others.
In a continuation towards the center of the country, the internal towns of the neighboring province, Córdoba, now concentrate the local pride of Julián Álvarez as before Mario Kempes, Pablo Aimar or Oscar Ruggeri.
The third central contribution, now far from the endless fields and plains, is pure urbanity: the Buenos Aires suburbs,
the huge conglomerate that surrounds Buenos Aires and where Diego Maradona and several of the Qatar 2022 champions were born, including Enzo Fernández – chosen as the best youth player in the World Cup – and Gonzalo Montiel, another of the footballers who came to Doha as an actor cast and left in a wake of eternity, like the man who, in the name of Messi, converted the third star's penalty.
The Sevilla player did it his way: as the most unexpected specialist from 11 meters.
He converted the penalty for the third star.
The Sevilla player did it his way: as the most unexpected specialist from 11 meters.
He converted the penalty for the third star.
The Sevilla player did it his way: as the most unexpected specialist from 11 meters.
If the boys and girls from the provinces of Santa Fe and Córdoba line up on grass or dirt courts, in the greater Buenos Aires the ball begins to roll on tiles or cement, the surface of
baby
football, a kind of training futsal for children that, around the age of 10, go to the playgrounds for adults.
The main municipality of the Buenos Aires periphery is La Matanza, half dirt streets and half asphalt, almost an Argentina within Argentina with 2,200,000 inhabitants, the district with the highest population density in the country.
Reference of the working class, in the sacrifice and pride of La Matanza germinated the penalty that gave the World Cup to Argentina and Messi.
"There are boys who come to play soccer to have a good time, but Gonzalo always came to be a soccer player," reconstructs Bruno Quinteros, the coach who followed Montiel's career the most, first at Brisas al Sud, a small futsal club, and then already in two formative stages in River.
“I worked with Tano Nanía, a talent scout in La Matanza, who also discovered Leandro Paredes – another brand new world champion – when he was 4 years old.
One of the first images I remember of Gonzalo is when we practiced headbutts with a ball tied to a rope: it's an exercise that the boys don't like, but Gonzalo was already an animal, he made the ball swing over the top of the pendulum.
He was 6 years old, long hair, vinchita (ribbon), a beast.
He was not a virtuoso, there were more technical players, but you knew that he was going to arrive ”,
Second name Ariel due to his grandfather Jerónimo's fanaticism for Ariel Ortega, River's idol, Montiel arrived at that club in 2009. He was 12 years old and few words and smiles, as if he concentrated all his energy on soccer to beat the future.
From a working family, a bricklayer father and a cleaning mother (“we couldn't go to the field because we didn't have money for the entrance fee,” he said), each trip on public transport to train from Virrey del Pino, at the end of La Matanza, lasted two hours and half.
Montiel also became strong from the pain: his grandfather Jerónimo was shot to death by a neighbor who could not stand the barking of her dogs.
“I directed it again in River, in pre-ninth, and seven years we coincided in a preseason.
He had already made his debut in First Division and I was on the Reserve coaching staff.
At the beginning of each year, the Yoyo Test is carried out, a physical evaluation of short but intense runs of 20 meters.
Gonzalo was the only one who broke the machine, he came and went, a beast, ”Quinteros recalls about a kid who, with his first salary, bought the house from his parents.
Although his nickname is Cachete, in Marcelo Gallardo's coaching staff there were those who defined him, due to his tenacity and perseverance, "the German".
That German from La Matanza, who went from a central defender to a winger due to a lack of height, had never taken charge of free kicks or penalties.
But River entered a crisis from 11 meters: all the specialists, the talented and the forwards like Rafael Borré, Juan Fernando Quintero, Ignacio Fernández and Matías Suárez were wrong.
Montiel surprised by joining a penalty shootout against Cruzeiro from Brazil, for the 2019 Copa Libertadores round of 16, and what seemed like an exception became a new classic: since then he has not stopped kicking and converting, always with different styles, always deceiving the goalkeeper,
sometimes dedicating them to heaven to his grandfather with the initials of his pets, L and I, Lucas and Indio.
In River he scored the eight that he executed until joining Sevilla.
Waiting to win ownership in Spain, his dedication is so great that last week he made himself available for the match that Jorge Sampaoli's team will play this Wednesday against Juventud Torremolinos for the Copa del Rey, without having any notion of the role that will play for him. expected in the last play of the World Cup or the delirium that would receive him in his country.
Substitute for Nahuel Molina in the World Cup, Montiel totaled 107 minutes in three games: he started against Mexico and entered extra time against the Netherlands and France, games in which he was successful in both definitions by penalties.
Impeccable, he has ten out of ten.
Scaloni said that, after 120 minutes of the final, Montiel was crying because he had committed the penalty that Kylian Mbappé converted in the final 3-3.
"You kick the room anyway," the coach told him, confident.
Montiel deceived Hugo Lloris with a
no look
–Look to the side to distract the rival goalkeeper– and, although he did not give him time to dedicate it to his grandfather at the Lusail stadium, La Matanza is also world champion.
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