Peru vs Uruguay: the photos you never saw of the triumph of the national team in the Centennial, that 1981

On Sunday, August 23, 1981, Peru defeated Uruguay 2-1 in the Centenario, with goals from Tanque Guillermo La Rosa and Diamante Julio César Uribe. Thus, from that feat, the selection confirmed that the classification to Spain 82 was possible. Even the dream: it was a heroic performance, with symphonic music, and the critics returned it with adjectives that predicted a huge World Cup. Now, 41 years later, the national team is once again playing for life at the Centenario on March 24. Is it true that Uribe whistled a sensual sauce in the locker room of the legendary stadium, as if he were going to get ready to go out with Clara, his girlfriend, and not to dodge kicks from the charrúas? Is it true that that adidas V-neck T-shirt costs several thousand dollars on the collectors’ market today? How was Tim, the coach of that almost perfect team, and how did his technical talks, mesmerizing messages? Was Patron Velásquez really the best footballer in that Qualifiers? Was it impossible to beat the Uruguayan team on their field, the recent champion of the 1980 Mundialito?

Some answers are here, prepared with photos from the El Comercio Historical Archive, the work of Armando Scargglioni and with testimonies from Jaime Duarte, Julio César Uribe, José Velásquez and the journalist Mario Fernández, present that afternoon at the Centennial as a special envoy of El Comercio .

And here you can see that we were heroes.

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He combined metaphors with shit, all mixed up in portuñol, and the physique helped him: behind his seventies, his white mustache and his beret, Elba de Padua Lima Tim had formed, until this game in August 1981 against Uruguay in the Centenario, a team that played what he believed. His talks were, then, messages to the country, sermons, catechesis that hypnotized. And then, with the elimination of the World Cup on top, that peace would become artillery against his selected ones, but that’s another story. In the photo, training before the match that ended 2-1, Barbadillo, Cueto, La Rosa, Velásquez and Oblitas listen to Tim as if he were the priest who gives the talk before their weddings. Patrulla’s open mouth is everything: this is what it should be like to see a god.

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The elegance of Peru in 1981 had to do with the patent leather shoes with which Uribe played, the man who whistled —”it was a song that I liked, I was very calm, I knew of my conditions but above all, I knew of the quality of my companions”, recalls Diamante—, but also with the African look of Velásquez, el Patrón, the man who reinvented the role of midfielder, 300 years before Pogba was born. He commands the Peruvian team in routine training at the Centenario, 24 hours before the match against Uruguay, not for pleasure. Next to him, the Tank La Rosa. The last in line, vigilante, Héctor Chumpitaz. There is in his face the rictus of whom he intuits that he has not traveled shopping.

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The team’s coaching staff made only one change against Uruguay: 16 Jorge Olaechea for 9 Guillermo La Rosa, at 66′. The physical state of the campus was privileged —the team was around 30 years old on average, full— and confidence from the bench was supreme. And there, in the changes and the strategy, this duo played against the wall: Ramón Mifflin and Tim. History hasn’t been fair to Cabezón, a friend of Pelé and Maradona, a wise generator of passes and walls in the old Nacional, when YouTube didn’t exist. This image tries to do it: behind that magical Peru, there was also Ramón.

How could Peru play against Uruguay?