Sports university, a club united by music

El Más Grande, a relevant album published in vinyl format to commemorate the hundred years of the founding of Universitario de Deportes, traces the history of this popular Peruvian club through thirteen songs from different musical genres that, over the course of a century, have served to identify, represent and bring together the “cream” community around that utopia of a sporting nation that, in short, every football club wants to embody.

The simile between a football club and a nation is not an empty figure. In fact, if we pay attention to the songs that make up El Más Grande, we will find fallen heroes (“Lolo Fernández”), representatives of the people (“La mejor fanda”), territories to be defended (“Voces de Odriozola”), campaigns heroic (“We are going to win the cup”) and emblematic triumphs (“University champion”) that, in another order of things, we could find, with other faces and other names, in the history books that narrate the founding deeds of a country .

Thus, in football, as in other manifestations of nationalism, music serves to unite a community through the celebration of the characters, places and values ​​that represent it. For this community to remain over time, as has been the case with the “U”, it is necessary that the celebration be updated over the years and not remain stagnant in the forms and styles of a previous generation. The Greatest is an exemplary case of this type of updating.

On its A side, the album transports us to the founding years of the “U”. There are the polkas that excited our great-grandparents and that today are considered classics

in the club’s history: “Y…Dale U!” from Los Ases del Perú, “Lolo Fernández” from the Fiesta Criolla group and “Universitario champion” from Eddy Martínez; There is also the seventies ballad “Universitario y yo”, by Rubén Techera, a Uruguayan player who wore the cream jersey; and, also from the seventies, “Dale U”, a guaracha written by Diego Vicuña and performed by the tropical group La Crema.

If the album ended up here, it would be an excellent job of record recovery, since many of these songs had not been officially reissued or digitized since the day of their original release. But The Greatest does not have a merely archaeological spirit; Its main objective is, at the end of the day, to keep alive the feeling of belonging that unites the cream community to this day. For this reason, the B side of the album brings us directly to the present with rock songs like “Como no voy a Quierote Universidad” by Nos Sobra Aliento, reggae songs like “La mejor fanda” by Bombo de la Barra, and pop ballads like “ Forever University” by Gian Marco, punk rock like “Con la crema en el chest” by Atados a un Sentiment and Latin pop like “Vamos la U” by the group Afrodisiaco by Koky Bonilla. Spanning four generations or more, El Más Grande gives college fans a kind of historical awareness, as well as a range of musical styles that can bring together fans of all ages.

In summary, El Más Grande fulfills its function of musically articulating the feelings of identity, representation and belonging that unite the members of a football club, also giving them a historical dimension that goes back up to one hundred years. Its appeal transcends sports: the album is, in itself, an anthology item that will undoubtedly interest more than one vinyl collector. If you are interested, you can search for it at www.latoyarecords.com