Being a Barça player has never been easy: it requires many sacrifices, starting with accepting that we are the best of the big clubs in Europe when it comes to own goals. If we Spaniards have not managed to destroy Spain in centuries, the strength of Barça is that not even Barcelona fans – and their boards of directors – have destroyed this passionate club that gives its name to a city, Barcelona.
He has died Cholo Sotile in Lima and I still have a tantrum. Fifty years of tantrums aren’t bad! What’s not enough? One moment. I had a very happy childhood in the 60s, except for the frequent and notorious disappointments that Barça gave me. There were only two joys and since they were so few they seemed strange to me, without even knowing how to celebrate them: two Generalissimo cups – the final of the bottles against Real Madrid at the Bernabéu in 1968 and that of Alfonseda’s goal in extra time against Valencia , year 1971–.
Johan Cruyff, Hugo Sotil and Johan Neeskens
The setbacks, on the other hand, were deep, among them the final of the Basel Cup Winners’ Cup against Slovan Bratislava, the height of the misfortune of 1969. Meanwhile, Real Madrid was lifting European Cups and the adults were dedicated to missing Kubala , César or Luis Suárez. Believe me: that was the most ungrateful and unrequited love that a child could discover…
Only Barça itself was capable of destroying an eleven that played football like angels
Suddenly, in 1973, FC Barcelona signed an unknown Peruvian player but with the endorsement of his participation in Mexico 70 – the best World Cup that one can remember – and as soon as we landed we won the Gamper like every year but like never before, amidst an air of renewal and freshness. What a great game against Borussia Monchengladbach, won in extra time with a goal from Sotil! The final ended almost at two in the morning and heralded a different season. It was the end of many things, among them the dictatorship and that unbearable Merengue hegemony.
And then Johan Cruyff landed, with the League 73-74 underway. Barça stopped losing and every game was a football festival, a joy. The lineup remained in memory, as if by heart, and the angels played that eleven that erased the disappointments. With Sotil and Cruyff, we discovered Marcial and understood the greatness of Rexach. It was a modern, fine-tuned, indestructible machine…
And what did Barça do then? Destroy it, leave Cholo Sotil aside for an entire season, destroy a wonderful eleven and lose games again. There are no excuses about this or that. Sotil played 70 official matches – not that many – which makes him the myth with the fewest minutes played.
The tantrum still lasts and the life lesson: what works is never touched…
Read also
#Sotil #years #tantrum #Joaquín #Luna
