The extravagant Peruvian collection of Russian t-shirts by Zambrano, Farfán and Cueva

In Baar, Switzerland, in a house with high ceilings and wood veneer, where the heater is always on in months like these, where the temperature can drop to -3 degrees and snow falls, Peruvian Fernando Figueroa keeps what he calls one of their treasures. In one of the rooms decorated with the permission of Lindsay, his Swiss wife, in the midst of a collection of 1,300 jerseys from clubs and national teams from all over the world, the Peruvian Figueroa pays tribute to three soccer players from the national team who passed through the football table Russia and Ukraine, two countries punished by the war started a few weeks ago by President Vladimir Putin. They are collection shirts, match worn (used in game), that once belonged to Carlos Zambrano, Christian Cueva and Jefferson Farfán, three soccer players who can attest that the cold in that part of the world is of the same intensity as the affection of its people for this game, which only knows how to unite.

Fernando Figueroa is the administrator of the Adamantium T-shirt Collection Instagram page. He has 4,733 followers. He became a collector by chance, or by game or by destiny. It is possible that this work is inherited by Mateo and Diego, his children. “It’s a job, Miguel: the care, the spaces, the conservation,” he says, he insists, seriously. Of those 1,300 jerseys he has, he has decided to dust off seven, given the world situation in Russia and Ukraine. Look at them again, take pictures of them, post them on their networks. Collectors are the curators of memory.

There are three León Zambrano shirts at Dinamo Kiev, two Farfán shirts from his time at Lokomotiv Moscow 2016-20 (in green, if we look at the opening photo of this note) and one in black from Cuevita, when he was the attacking midfielder of Krasnodar 2018-2019. “All of them I have obtained through Russian collectors. Normally the market in that country is handled as in South America, through the props of the clubs. I have contact with them and that’s how I was able to access these models,” says Figueroa, who is very cautious about talking about amounts: “They cost, but they are priceless.”

“The most difficult to locate are those of the small Ukrainian teams. Shakhtar Donetsk and Dinamo, shall we say, are simpler. That’s why I couldn’t get Paolo de La Haza, Édgar Villamarín, and José Carlos Fernández (Odesa – Chornomorets) yet. Advíncula’s, you know better, is more difficult to get because he spent a month in that club (Crimea-SC Tavriya Simferopol) ”he explains, emphasizing “yet”.

So how did you get the ones on display today for your collection? “Zambrano’s -he explains- have a significant value: they are from the 2019/2020 season and there he only appeared on the list for two games. I had to talk to Russian collector friends to be able to make the exchange.” Namely: against Karpaty Lviv and against Mariupol. Consequently, and for these purposes, only two sets of jerseys were prepared. the Peruvian Figueroa has both. “Without a doubt, those were the hardest to get”.

“Farfán’s dark green -Under Armour- is from the day he returned to Lokomotiv after an injury and scored a header. That is very special. And the green adidas, that is from the season that he was champion ”it says.

The collection is completed with a magical uniform in black from the stage in which christian cave he militated in Krasnodar. It is used in game, by the Europa League. The surname Cueva is clearly noticeable, basically, because in international tournaments UEFA asks Russian teams not to use the Cyrillic alphabet – a writing system used in several Eurasian languages, based on Greek – but Spanish to write the names. .

and the one of Caveyou know, always gets noticed.

Peru’s forgotten match in Kiev, played in 1972