Hugo Alejandro Sotil, former player of FC Barcelonaay known as Cholo Sotil, has died at the age of 75 in the capital of Peru, the country where he was born and where he was a legend. The former forward, who played for the Barça club between 1973 and 1977, won a League with Barça, in which he formed an unforgettable duo with Johan Cruyff.
Sotil, who had been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of the Dos de Mayo Hospital in Lima since last December 19, won the League with Barça in 1974, which once again won the alirón after 14 years of drought. That season he participated in the famous thrashing Real Madrid at the Bernabéu (0-5)scoring the fifth goal.
As a Barça player, the Peruvian attacker played 70 games, in which he scored 18 goals. With his team he played in the 1970 and 1978 World Cups and won the 1975 Copa América.
The former striker began his sporting career in Municipal of Limafrom 19 to 24 years old. In his first season at Barça, he played every game in the 1973-74 League, doing real wonders alongside figures like Rexach, Asensi, Cruyff and Marcial.
Everyone remembers that endearing anecdote that happened when Barça won the League at Molinón. That April 7, 1974, Sotil called his mother from the locker room to tell her a phrase that went down in Barça history: “Mommy, we’re champions!”
Sotil spent the following year blank, since the signing of Johan Neeskens It made it impossible for him to play until he obtained dual nationality, which took him much longer to obtain than expected. In the 1975-76 season he was able to play official matches for Barça again, but he was no longer the same. In 1977 he signed for Alianza de Lima.
On May 17, 1984, a tribute was paid to the Miniestadi with a veterans’ match between the 1974 team and a South American team. Decades later, on October 30, 2014, last November Cholo visited what was always his home coinciding with the celebration events of the 125th Anniversary of the club.
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