In 1974, Barça had just won its first League since 1960. The long-awaited opening of borders with the signing of Cruyff and Sotil had rounded out an unstoppable team that swept the local competition and prepared to return to the European Cup in a climate of euphoria. The board, chaired by Agustí Montal Costa, looked for reinforcements and managed to incorporate a top-ranked Dutch midfielder, Johan Neeskens.
To get Ajax to release him, it was necessary to pay 2,250,000 florins, 47 million pesetas, approximately half of what Cruyff had cost a year before. The operation was closed in the middle of the 1974 World Cup, with the direct intervention of Josep Lluís Vilaseca and Armand Carabén representing Barça. But at the same time a difficult conflict arose: Barça had three foreigners on the payroll and only two could play. It wasn’t even allowed to alternate them. Whoever was left out could only dedicate themselves to training and friendlies.
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“They violated all existing and future treaties with Peru,” Carabén denounced.
To further complicate the situation, Barcelona announced shortly afterwards the agreement reached with Brazilian central defender Mario Marinho, another recent World Cup winner, and the intention to finally recover Juan Carlos Heredia, once the protagonist of the natives’ scandal, a Breakthrough forward with the strength and penetration that years later Hristo Stoichkov would sublimate. The play was powerful, perhaps too powerful, more than one must have thought. Suddenly adding Neeskens, Marinho and Heredia represented an obvious leap in quality and depth in the squad. Bureaucratic difficulties began very soon.
In the case of Marinho the situation was clear: his mother was from Navarra and could immediately acquire Spanish nationality. Despite this, his debut was delayed until December, with almost a third of the League played. In the case of Heredia, who was playing for Elche, he could already apply for dual nationality. But their papers were not settled until February, for the final sprint of a League that was already lost at that time. And in the case of Neeskens, it was decided to register him from the first day as Cruyff’s foreign partner and expedite the legal procedures to Spanishize to Sotil, by virtue of the existing agreement between Spain and Peru.
After a splendid first season, in which he started all the League games, only saw one yellow card and scored eleven goals, Cholo Sotil was explained to him that now he had to be patient, that his thing was a matter of a short time, and that very soon he could align himself as Hispanic-Peruvian. Sotil returned from his vacation on July 27, 1974 and announced that he arrived ready to obtain his new passport, based on his year of stay in Barcelona and his contract for several seasons that assured him a long stay in Spain. But it didn’t happen like that: Neeskens’ arrival sidelined Sotil for an entire year. He did not play a single official match between May 1974 and September 1975. When he returned he was another footballer, eaten away by months of inactivity and nightlife.
Through the Minister of the Movement, José Utrera Molina, Barcelona thought it was a piece of cake. “He sent us a letter from his colleague in Justice, Francisco Ruiz-Jarabo, where he told him ‘I will resolve the issue immediately’, but they violated all treaties with Peru, existing and future,” explains Carabén in his memoirs. Barcelona moved heaven and earth, to no effect. Montal even met personally with a third minister, the Foreign Minister, Pedro Cortina Mauri, also without result.
The magical Cruyff-Neeskens-Sotil trio was never formed with the three players fully formed. Sotil, who on his debut with Barcelona, in the Gamper in the summer of 1973, scored a great goal and asked his teammates why they were waving handkerchiefs (“it’s for your goal, Cholo,” they told him), he didn’t understand anything then either.
Natives and foreigners
Sotil, Heredia and Marinho, what a cocktail
Sotil reappeared in the 1975-76 season and enjoyed numerous opportunities, without great results. The following year he only played 5 league games and in February 1977 he returned to Lima. Heredia remained at Barcelona until the end of 1979, when a conflict with then Barça coach Quimet Rifé forced his return to Argentina. And Mario Marinho, who arrived to cover the decline of Paco Gallego, ran into the appearance of Migueli and Weisweiler’s veto. Between December 1974 and December 1975 he only played 29 official matches. The only thing missing was for him to receive the notice of joining the ranks in Cartagena (Navy, two years of military service), so that he could take those in Villadiego.
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