Northeast of Paris, In what the French call the banlieue (the suburb), is the commune of Colombes, a beautiful and quiet residential area that can be reached by Metro and then by train. In that neighborhood of trees and silence is the Yves-du-Manoir Stadium, the old coliseum where the glory of South American football was born. On that centuries-old grass he discovered the world that, on the other side of the ocean, in Indian lands, there were individuals who played ball a lot. They were not simple bats that ran without stopping: they were true artists who amazed with their touch, their grace, their feints, their breaks and feints. They were the Uruguayans breaking the shell of great recognition, giving life to the so-called “Olympic Burst”, which brought together Paris 1924 and Amsterdam 1928.
We couldn't get to Paris without visiting the temple of Colombes. Perhaps we were there because of the furor caused by those phenomenal charrúas. As that magnificent advertisement that promoted Dominican tourism said: “Dominican Republic, where it all began.” It is there that Columbus landed for the first time on American soil. In terms of football, our landing was in Colombes.
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The Yves-du-Manoir shrank, from 60,000 spectators to 7,000. There is only one grandstand left, the side one with a tin roof from what was the central stage of the 1924 Olympic Games and the 1938 World Cup. It is the home of the Paris Racing Club, once glorious that today wanders through the fourth division. The same Racing de Paris that in 1986, sponsored by the Matrá motor company, revolutionized world football by hiring Enzo Francescoli, Ruben Paz, Pierre Littbarski, Maxime Bossis, Luis Fernández and other stars.
The result was a colossal fiasco, a simple piling up of names. A fortune was squandered, the team was relegated, the sponsor fled and the Racing Club sank into the swamp of anonymity.
Even today, in the globalized world where everything is known, many French people would find it difficult to locate Uruguay on the map. Let's go back to 1924. There it was not known if Uruguay was a fruit, a brand of tobacco or the name of a tribe. The name alone sounded so exotic…
On the afternoon of the opening of the games, they say, they raised the Uruguayan flag upside down, with the sun facing downwards. In the competition they put him in a previous qualifying round against Yugoslavia. One way to preserve the seriousness of the tournament: if they didn't know how to play, it was best for them to stay on the sidelines.
Legend has it that two Yugoslav “spies” went to the Uruguayan training to see what these strange individuals were like. And there the Creole mischief appeared. Alerted, the celestials did everything clumsily: they collided with each other, kicked anywhere. The Balkans returned to the concentration and, more than happy, they were saddened: “Poor people, coming from so far away to be eliminated in the first game.” They felt sincere pity.
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The next day they played and Uruguay beat them 7 to 0 with an unforgettable dance… And with only 3,025 people in the stands.
Courtesy: www.auf.org.uy
The impact was such that 10,455 attended the second meeting. And to the other, and to the next. Each presentation was a party of touches, luxuries and goals. The black José Leandro Andrade was nicknamed “The Black Wonder” and guest of honor at the Lido. Nasazzi was called “The Great Captain”, Héctor Scarone “The Magician”, Pedro Petrone “The Fiera”.
Soccer owes Uruguay the first great blow of popularity, since its feat transcended all borders. There the fame was born that it was a sport where anything could happen. There was the sample.
After the beating of Yugoslavia, four other victories made up the ladder towards Olympic laurel: the United States 3-0, France 5-1, the Netherlands 2-1 and Switzerland 3-0. After that last clash with the Helvetians, the public stood up and applauded the celestials like never before.
A minute passed, two, three… people couldn't stop applauding. To reciprocate so much tribute, Nasazzi told his teammates: “Hey, let's go around the field to say hello.” This is how the Olympic Tour was born. They invented it without realizing it. People threw hats and flowers as they passed and the Uruguayan boys picked them up and threw them again. It's filmed, it's very exciting.
The detail that takes the feat to epic levels is that, in addition, Uruguay attended the tournament diminished. In 1923 the Copa América was held in Montevideo. Eastern football had been divided since 1922 by a schism: Nacional stayed in the Association, Peñarol, enraged, dragged a bunch of small clubs to found the Federation. The Association was affiliated with Conmebol and FIFA, with those players taking on international events.
So bitter was the division between the two greats that one afternoon, on November 25, 1923, two “Uruguay National Team” showed up to play at the same time. In the Central Park and for the Copa América, the Association (official) beat Brazil 2 to 1. About twenty blocks away, on the Peñarol field in Pocitos, the Federation team defeated Chile by the same score. The two played with the light blue jacket that marks history. They both said the same thing: “We are Uruguay.”
To win his fight against Peñarol in front of the public, the president of Nacional and the Association, Atilio Narancio, made a master move; He promised the players: “If they win the Copa América I will take them to play in the Olympics in Paris.” The footballers delivered, they won the title.
The leader too. It was not easy. Narancio, nicknamed “The Father of Victory,” already involved in dancing, danced: he mortgaged his country house in the Maroñas neighborhood to finance the trip. It was not all: until the last moment, the Uruguayan Olympic Committee did not give authorization to participate in the Games; He feared a mess. The thing is that all the European powers would intervene, their power was unknown, but it was thought that it would be enormous. And Uruguay had its football game. Peñarol, Central, South America, Defender, Misiones, Miramar, River Plate and thirty other clubs would not be represented.
It was a very high risk. The efforts reached even the president of the Nation. It was only nine days after leaving Montevideo, with the ship on the high seas, that the COU gave approval. La Celeste would attend without the Federation footballers. She was half Uruguayan. For this reason, the 1924 Olympic feat has double value.
That June 9, 1924, thousands of Peñarol fans made their way through Switzerland. There was no Mirasol footballer among the champions. “In the '24 final I wanted the team to lose. Without Peñarol, that team was not Uruguay,” architect Raúl Bove Ceriani, former president of the Uruguayan Olympic Committee, told us in person. Uruguay was then a country of close to a million and a half inhabitants. However, 400,000 crowded the port of Montevideo to cheer them on their return.
Uruguay Olympic champion… Incredible! We enter the year of the centenary of that eternal feat. We returned from Colombes floating among memories. And sad. Neither a photo nor a bronze plaque perpetuated the feat of those heroes who put South American football on the map of global consideration.
Jorge Barraza
Pair TIME
@JorgeBarrazaOK
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