Messi, Trauco and other famous shirts that sleep in the wardrobes of the Peruvian cracks

It happened in 1997, nine years before the appearance of Twitter, a time when football discussions ended with real friends in a real bar. Three players from the national team, according to what the international signal transmitted by the disaster, ran after Romario, Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos, with the intention of exchanging their shirts. Automatons ran, as if attracted by a magnet. There was nothing strange in the order —the t-shirts are, for football, a flag—, if not for the indignant reaction of some gentlemen who only know what must be: Peru had just been beaten 7-0 by Brazil at the height of La Paz and dishonorably fired from the Copa América. I can’t even imagine what would have happened if Jack Dorsey advanced his invention or the game was played last night.

The real thing is that in the wardrobes of Waldir Sáenz, César Rosales and Miguel Rebosio T-shirts are sleeping today whose prices exceed 5,000 dollars and are, at the same time, of incalculable value.

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Ever since, in a friendly match in 1931, French national team footballers asked their English rivals if they could keep their uniforms as a souvenir of their triumph – the UEFA website explains it better here – dozens of Peruvian players have started this ritual. , this tradition, this future curatorship, which brings rivals and sisters closer together. It erases their borders. Lower the revs. I do not know if the first but the most envied is Ramón Mifflin, who exchanged a jersey with Pelé after the game against Brazil in Guadalajara, the 4-2 in Mexico 70. Until now he must be at his home in Punta Hermosa. Another is Juan Carlos Oblitas, who exchanged his jacket with Michel Platini at the orgiastic meeting at Parque de los Príncipes, in 1982. And more here Roberto Chorri Palacios, who does not know to whom he gave the symbolic Walon I love you Peru t-shirt from the 2002 Qualifiers, but he does show his chest because of the Nike model that one of the good friends that football gave him, Cafu, gave him. Or even closer, just a few weeks ago, and before being praised with excessive praise, Raziel García fulfilled the dream of millions and posted it on IG: to take home the shirt that Neymar wore in the last Copa América, where he finished runner-up.

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Brief pearls sleeping in cabinets from Peru and the world. Eusebio Chevo Acasuzo exchanged Penalty shirt with the immense Dino Zoff, after the 1-1 in Spain 82; He also did it with Thomas N’Kono from Cameroon and Jozef Mlynarczyk from Poland, that is to say the three goalkeepers of the group from Peru in that World Cup. After kicking him in the old National Stadium, Puma Carranza exchanged an Umbro jersey with Claudio Paul Caniggia for the World Cup Qualifiers in France 98. Peru drew 0-0 with Argentina. In a friendly with Germany after the World Cup in Russia, Jefferson Farfán exchanged an intense red Marathon model with star Julian Draxler. One night, his soul brother, Paolo Guerrero, received a precious compliment: the Uruguayan José María Jiménez, perhaps one of the Uruguayan defenders who has given him the most kicks in recent years, chased him to ask for his sweater number 9.

I cannot imagine the closet of Claudio Pizarro, the most winning Peruvian footballer in history at the club level.

Loco Ramón Quiroga, Peru’s starting goalkeeper in two World Cups, changed his precious adidas uniform with Brazilian star Zico, in a friendly in Rio against Brazil before the World Cup in Argentina 78. Miguel Miranda (+) had among his things a very beautiful A garment that belonged to the Colombian Óscar Córdoba. Germán Cocoliche Leguía still keeps, in one of the corners of his home in Miraflores, Enzo Francéscoli’s shirt – then number 24 – after the Peru-Uruguay semifinal match of the 1983 Copa América. He lost the national team but the midfielder won that gem. He also has one from the Mexican Hugo Sánchez and another from the German Bernd Schuster, inheritances from his time as a footballer in Spain.

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The last time I was able to see him up close, that is to say, close to intuit it, Miguel Trauco had the same sad face from last night’s defeat. Or more, of the lost chance to make history. It was 2016, on flight 2146 back to Lima, after the defeat with Melgar that left Universitario without a championship finish, and there was no player more silent than the left back of the national team. He accepted photos, signed a couple of shirts, but his face no longer allowed the smile. The ‘U’ had lost the chance to play the final and he, to be champion with his old man’s team. That was not going to be possible anymore.

Then Flamengo went, and then to Saint-Étienne and then to the 2018 World Cup in Russia, a remarkable career that has allowed him to fulfill the beloved dreams of his childhood in Tarapoto: to play at playing that he was surrounded by the best footballers on the planet. Now, when the shirt he exchanged with Messi in Buenos Aires joins the one that Neymar gave him a few months ago in a PSG game, his home will have become a brief museum of joy. In a museum with closed doors that will gain even more value as the years go by and it becomes history. “I keep t-shirts, I look for them – the Peruvian engineer Miguel Montalvo Robertson, perhaps the most obsessive collector of t-shirts of the national team, always tells me – so they don’t get lost in time.” That is why the Great Captain Héctor Chumpitaz did it, his own confession.

I suspect that Miguel Trauco is working today for the day when he can tell his grandchildren everything he went through. At a certain age it passes. And how glad I am.

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