From goal scorer to ambassador: the story of the first Claudio Pizarro

In a country like Peru that chooses its presidents more by opposition than by adherence, soccer fans are pushed to choose a side sooner or later: “Pizarristas” or “Anti-Pizarristas”. Those who claim to be balanced in acknowledging Claudio Pizarro’s achievements and at the same time pointing out his pending accounts are judged lukewarm. Grays are not allowed.

Perhaps that is why it continues to be one of the tastiest discussions in any corner: the same striker who made us proud by the cable is accused of having given Gareca’s team bad luck in the playoff against Australia for having taken some photos with the squad and have shared a few hugs. That’s how hilarious it is.

That same man of almost 44 years recently announced that on September 24 he will organize a game in Germany to honor more than two decades of career. It will be a match with three halves of thirty minutes each, where the two clubs that venerate him will face each other: Werder Bremen and Bayern Munich, and a team of friends led by Pep Guardiola.

On the same day, the Peruvian national team — with or without Gareca — will play a friendly match against the Mexican national team, in the United States. Coincidence or treachery? With Claudio Pizarro, you never know. With him the questions hardly have an answer. They are tornadoes that do not stop spinning until the end of time.

from port to port

. In the summer of 1996 he began his adventure in the First Division with Deportivo Pesquero de Chimbote. Three years later, before the dawn of the new millennium, he set sail for Bremen. And in 1989 he lived with one of his best friends from school in the port of Paita: Miguel Angel Zagazetaa left-hander who offered some flashes in the Peruvian tournament and who today leads the U-16 of the ‘U’.

Both were sons of sailors, and studied at the Liceo Naval Almirante Guisse, in San Borja, except for that year, where they spent their time playing fronton paddle while their parents fulfilled their missions in Piura.

It was Zagazeta who convinced Pizarro to leave the Liceo Naval academy — where he was a midfielder — to try his luck at Cantolao, where he began to understand the ‘9’ job. Together they were chosen by the astute eye of Roberto Chale to integrate the main team of Pesquero. And together they traveled to Chimbote to carry out the preseason alongside John Valdiviesoa center, and Gregorio ‘Goyo’ Bernalesa docking steering wheel that hinted at a promising future.

After a month and a half, Zagazeta escaped from the concentration in Chimbote and returned to Lima despite attempts to Pizarro for persuading him. The hotel and the city were simply not to his liking. Within weeks, the forward made his debut in the First Division at the age of 17, while the left-hander would do so three years later with Sport Boys. Decisions would say Rubén Blades.

Of course, in all these years, where Pizarro He has been idolized and beaten, Zagazeta has defended him every time they have messed with the human being.

“He has helped many people quietly and selflessly. Maybe his expressions weren’t helping him. Maybe people didn’t like his intonation when he said things or his smile and they put unfair labels on him. But I know who he is, beyond the successful and professional footballer that he has been”.

While, Kike La Hozfounder of the digital magazine Sudor and author of a profile of the ‘Bombardier of the Andes’ for the book Benditos (Maghreb, 2018) summarizes the complexity of the most successful ambassador Peruvian football has ever had. “We like to love and hate at the same time. That’s how we are. Those who do archeology with Pizarro in a hundred years will find that he was the failed idol of the national team and at the same time a conqueror abroad”He says.

This Wednesday will be two years since his last official match, when he saved the category with Werder Bremen against Heidenheim without playing a minute and without an audience due to the pandemic. Justice and party is what he will look for in September, in Germany. In the country where he was born it does not seem to be possible.