“Peru was lucky to find Lapadula. He fit perfectly into the team”

In the France 98 World Cup, FIFA gave an unusual piece of information, almost ahead of its time: Carlos Gamarra (Ypacarai, 1971), then a phenomenal Paraguayan defender nominated for the best in his position, did not commit any foul in the four games he played. Three hundred and eighty-three minutes in which that machine of enduring hits, rejecting aerial balls, anticipating plays and putting on a strong leg, did not need to commit a single infraction to disarm its opponents in the World Cup that Paraguay reached the round of 16. What is surprising today about the Dutch Virgil Van Dijk, Gamarra had already done it 24 years ago.

Idol of Guarani soccer, soccer player with the second most matches played in the history of his team, three-time World Cup player and silver medalist in Athens 2004. The ‘Colorado’, who at 50 years of age decided to venture into mixed martial arts, analyzes in this chat with DT Trade the bitter present of the Paraguayan team -out of Qatar 2022 a couple of dates ago- that this Tuesday will be the rival of a Peru that he needs to win to grab that fifth place in the playoffs.

-How did you decide to venture into mixed martial arts?

What happens is that I’ve been involved in these for five years, only nobody knew. Also, I wasn’t prepared to get in the cage either. Now I am and I said I wanted to fight, but always carefully, fighting with people more or less my age. From 40 and up, I can still hold out there, ha ha ha.

-Why was your first fight in Brazil suspended?

It fell due to the pandemic. We had that fight scheduled for the end of February or so, but it was called off because of the whole COVID-19 thing. We had also planned a fight in Paraguay, but the whole case of “Ultranza Paraguay” came out and one of the organizers was involved, now it seems that the fights here are all going to fall. But hey, I keep practicing every day.

-Entering football: What happened to the Paraguayan team to go from fighting to the end in the 2018 Qualifiers and now being eliminated for a few dates?

When the head doesn’t work, the rest of the body won’t either. And Paraguay today is out of his mind with President Luis Harrisino, who announced that he will leave at the end of the year, but to my liking he should have already left because he has already failed in two Qualifiers. And I don’t call him a failure because of sports, but because he has put most of his friends to work in the Federation and they are people who are not qualified for the positions, when he should have hired people prepared to carry out a good process. He now says that he is leaving at the end of the year, but I have my doubts. If he wanted to leave, he had to have done so before or when the new technician arrived so that the process could start now.

-Paraguay suffered a lot after the departure of ‘Tata’ Martino, right?

Yes, because ‘Tata’ squeezed the last of the players he had and when he realized that a project had not been done before, he left and left Francisco Arce with a ball of fire because almost all of them, 95%, of those who had qualified for the World Cup in South Africa had withdrawn and a new process had to begin. The first was Arce, then Gerardo Pelusso, Víctor Genes, Ramón Díaz. The most ridiculous of all was the hiring of Juan Carlos Osorio because he put in his contract that if they called him from Colombia, he could leave without problems. Everything was done very badly.

-Guillermo Barros Schelotto is the appropriate coach for Paraguay to seek to return to the World Cup?

Guillermo is a new technician. As a player he played little for his national team and as a coach he never had a national team in charge of him. So Paraguay, which is in a bad moment, calls him and accepts. He had nothing to lose because everything had already been lost with Berizzo. Supposedly, according to the president of the Federation, his contract was to complete these Qualifiers and it was one more lie: they gave him a four-year contract. Now we are going to see it because it must also be nurtured with people who help it, not with the same people as there are, otherwise the failure will continue. Paraguay in recent years has put very few players in Europe where the most competitive footballers really are

-Was this call surprising without several experienced players like Derlis Gonzáles and with some debutants?

I should have done it a long time ago. Paraguay had practically been left out in the past dates and had to try new boys because some are asking for a field and others in two Qualifiers have not shown anything different. In addition, in the match against Ecuador, some boys proved to be up to the task.

-Who feels more pressure in this last game: Peru because they need to win or the debutants in Paraguay who want to show themselves to the coach and the fans?

What happens is that in Paraguay there is not so much criticism of the team, less after the victory against Ecuador. I can assure you that Paraguay hasn’t talked about the Qualifiers for a long time. If you ask people on the street when the national team is playing, they don’t know. The pressure is going to be on Peru because they need to win the game, while the Paraguayan team is going to play eliminated and the boys won’t have any pressure on them.

-How do you analyze the game this Tuesday?

Paraguay always had a hard time playing in Lima. We haven’t had a win there in years and now it’s going to be easy. Peru is a team that plays very well, it has a clear idea. Honestly, I was surprised by the victory against Ecuador, many of us believed that Paraguay was not going to get good results on this double date.

-If there are no expectations, what is expected in Paraguay from the match against Peru?

As I told you a while ago. I am working in a radio station and I can assure you that until days before the game against Ecuador nothing about the national team had been played. Imagine what that means. I guess you guys have been palpitating this date for a month, but we weren’t even a few days before. This is the mood of the Paraguayan soccer fan.

-On the last date of the previous Qualifiers, Paraguay had to beat an eliminated Venezuela at home to get into the World Cup, and they lost. Today, Peru is in the position of Paraguay and you in that of Venezuela…

Yes, it is a bitter memory that still remains and should serve as a lesson for you. I remember that Paraguay had two fundamental games before: against Uruguay at home, which it lost, and against Colombia on the visit, which it won. There, the team depended on itself to qualify and against a Venezuela that came with many young players; however, they beat us. That is our problem. It costs us a lot when we have to propose, when we are favorites to win at home.

-Overconfidence can also play tricks…

Yes, that’s why Peru has to face this match as seriously as possible because otherwise they may regret it. The Paraguayan team has many debutants and they will want to show themselves, show something different.

-How do you see the Peruvian team in Paraguay?

It seems to me that there was a before and after in Peruvian football thanks to Ricardo Gareca. The ‘Tiger’ found a way to face the Qualifiers and gave discipline to Peruvian football. Currently the Peruvian team is much more in line with the players it has. They always had good players, but the problem was indiscipline.

-What do you remember most about your matches against Peru?

Peru, with that characteristic of playing well and touching the ball, was always a difficult rival. We almost always beat him in Asunción, but in Lima, for example, I lost the three times I played there for Qualifiers. It has and had great players like Claudio Pizarro, whom I faced several times and it was difficult for me to mark him.

-What did José Luis Chilavert tell you before facing Peru?

‘Chila’ was a player with a lot of character, he liked to harangue. And he always went to the front. He was very supportive and liked to attract attention. Before each game we told him to “new the hornet’s nest a little”, so he would speak to the press first and when he went out to warm up people would yell at him, but he liked that.

-There was a match at the Claudio Pizarro he shouted the goal in his face…

Yes, I remember, I was there. But he was like that, he liked that, disturbing the rival, moving the atmosphere a little. But he did it to take all the pressure off himself and for us to play better.

-Does this Paraguayan team need a Chilavert?

Yes. Paraguay does not have any leader in the field. All the complications that it had in these Qualifiers was precisely because of that, because there were no leaders and without that it is not possible. There were games in which the leaders had to resolve things on the pitch, but they didn’t because there isn’t one. That is why Paraguay is where it is: out of its third consecutive World Cup.

-What do you think of Gianluca Lapadula, our ‘9′?

I’ve seen him several times and I say they were lucky to find him because a historic scorer like Paolo Guerrero came out and Lapadula just came in scoring goals. Many times when the one who always scored the goals leaves, finding the ideal replacement is difficult, but Peru has Lapadula who fit in perfectly with the team.

-And beyond the soccer side, there is also the love that he shows for Peru by playing with the fractured septum…

That decision seems correct to me because if he had surgery, he was forced to stop. In addition, for the national team, all of us players risk our lives, and even more so, those who are for qualification for the World Cup.

-You came to share a dressing room with Ricardo Gareca in Independiente, what memories do you have of ‘Tigre’?

We all admired him because we saw him play for many clubs, scoring goals. And when he played with us we always had immense respect for him. He was a very classy player.

-Did you already have that technical paste?

I think so, it was already on track to be. He was noticeable in some gestures, how he was the leader of the dressing room and how he helped the little ones.