Maradona: the day he first arrived in Peru and who he asked to change his mythical shirt

The boy who was to be god appeared on the steps of the TRISTAR with a sign that distinguished him, more than a promising footballer, as a child genius: a coat that said Harvard University. By that morning, Wednesday, July 4, 1979, at Diego Armando Maradona life passed him with the speed of a movie trailer, as if it had been set by the hallucinations of some director. He had left the shantytown in Fiorito, from Azamor Street, to a house with four bedrooms just ten minutes walk from the Argentinos Juniors field. The neighborhood could not have a better name for their new son: La Paternal. Barcelona of Spain found out about him through UPI cables and made the first offer: one billion pesetas for his pass. His son was only 15 years old but he already supported his whole family, which one does, let’s say, when one is 45. He played like sliding, on roller skates; He celebrated the goals as if each raised fist started a revolution and in his ambitious statements he did not hide an average crack, but rather spoke guessing, as if prophesying that he was going to be a legend.

A month before leaving the youth world champion in Tokyo, his first intercontinental podium. The Peruvian Football Federation hired that boy, a locker magnet and a 1.64cm thermometer, to play in Lima before the Peruvian preselection led by Professor José Chiarella (+) a few weeks ago. To the Argentine and all Argentines, of course: the La Paternal team collected $ 30,000 at the time, according to a note from the Spanish newspaper El País. About 110 thousand at today’s exchange rate. Depending on what you want to see, or very little money or the extravagance typical of a World Cup football that 1979 was the current champion of America and could afford those luxuries.

Wearing his Harvard University coat, and the thin garúa that moistens everything he touches in the fall of Lima, Maradona pushed aside the cloud of photographers and reporters who were waiting for him and answered some questions, with diplomacy. The reason for her secrecy was natural, not a pose. Although he dreamed big all day, at that time in the morning, Maradona was sleepy. A request from his brothers had not let him sleep on the plane.

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Why had Maradona chosen Lima as a stop on the tour that Argentinos Juniors began throughout America? First, a need of the club for money: Pelusa earned 80 thousand pesos a month, about $ 900 by 2021, according to contract 639 registered in AFA by Argentinos, on May 24, 1977. They were the first numbers of a young soccer player who was condemned to be a millionaire. The document also said that Maradona earned a hundred pesos per point won and another hundred more for a friendly. The institution that would later be called Seedbed of the World —For having raised cracks the size of Maradona, but also Juan Román Riquelme, passing through Fernando Redondo or Juan Pablo Sorín— needed liquidity, and Maradona was gold, but he needed to balance the balance so that he could continue playing in his country: what first it was to do a national tour and also to negotiate a sponsorship. Then, Austral Lineas Aereas, the second most important airline in Argentina, bet on the magic of 10 and signed an exorbitant contract for the time. “Guillermo Suárez Mason, one of the strongmen of the dictatorship and a fanatic fan of El Bicho (…) was the one who managed to get Austral to advertise in the club and on AJ’s shirt to be able to pay Diego, who at 18 The best clubs in the world wanted him for years. The contract was for 300 thousand dollars for one year ”, says the Argentine journalist and writer Leandro Zanoni (Vivir en los Medios, 2006). The logo would go on the chest of the shirt, almost like a badge. Last March, through his Twitter account, he published several newspaper clipping where the first years of the Maradonian madness are better understood: a newspaper says that Pelusa was “National Heritage.” The magazine Gente puts it on the cover with a legend “Maradona and the 6 million dollars” and another, Somos, is more futuristic: “Maradona, limited liability company.” It was very difficult to pay what Diego earned but above all, not to go crazy with the offers that appeared.

Meanwhile, Diego Armando Maradona was only 18 years old and he was still moved by the toys. The day he signed the $ 300,000 contract with Austral, the Argentinos Juniors shirt was revalued, what made Pelusa smile was the little plane he gave him.

That sweater, with Maradona’s number 10 and the new logo, would go to the wardrobe of one of the most brilliant Peruvian footballers of all time at ten o’clock at night on July 4, 1979.

Maradona’s presence in Lima also responded to a sporting management: the Peruvian preselection was facing a process of change – Marcos Calderón was no longer directing the Bear -, it was testing new players – Jota Jota Oré, Pato Cabanillas, Juan Caballero – and had to play the Copa América of that year with the status of last champion. The first bet was the choice of José Chiarella (1929-2009), a Peruvian coach with studies in Brazil, a former advisor to Roberto Scarone, and experience in clubs such as Defensor Lima, Sporting Cristal, FBC Melgar, Carlos A. Manucci and Portuguesa Fútbol Club. “He was a good coach, front. He was very serious: in ’66 he made his best professional campaign with Sport Boys. He had a strong genius, in journalism he had many frictions with Pocho Rospigliosi. Round trip. For the time, he was a studious coach “. Perhaps the latter pushed him towards self-sufficiency: for the initial duels against Chile for the Copa América, he decided not to call Nene Cubillas (in Strickers of the USA) or Cholo Sotil (DIM of Colombia). Nor do they line up Percy Rojas or Juan Carlos Oblitas. The results fueled criticism: Peru fell 2-1 at the National Stadium in Lima and drew 0-0 in Santiago. The champion was eliminated in the semifinals. The worst thing they told you is unpublishable today.

But history will tell that José Chiarella Espíritu, the man who once summoned shamans to free Defensor Lima from the poor results in the 1993 Decentralized, was the first Peruvian coach to face Diego Armando Maradona.

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On Tuesday, July 3, 1979, El Comercio’s sports page opened with a sober, five-column headline:. It is the first appearance of the most universal Argentine surname in the Peruvian environment. Inside, as if it were a bad inverted pyramid, the last two paragraphs of the note on page 28 referred to what was subtitled the Great Attraction.

The 22 Peruvian players concentrated for this duel for Professor Chiarella leafed through the newspaper at the hotel and more than one agreed. Although in reality only one was going to be able to tell Diego about you. They were going to take photos that today are posters, rarities sought in Mercado Libre. And he was a poet.

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About the game, some clarifications. According to La Crónica and El Comercio, this 2-2 against Argentinos Juniors also served to fire César Cueto from Peruvian football, as he had just signed an advantageous contract with Atlético Nacional de Medellín in Colombia. “One of the biggest ovations in recent times was received by César Cueto last night – wrote El Comercio on July 5 – when he left the field of play to be replaced by Caballero”. Cueto was already a World Cup winner, two-time champion with Alianza and, clearly, the Peruvian representative of what we call our identity, then already recognized on the continent. The reports of the time are not precise about the day but they do announce the next and imminent post-match trip of Poeta de la Zurda, and thus join the powerful club where Tank Guillermo La Rosa already scored goals. Caretas magazine explained it from the irony: “Maradona took the people to the stadium, but Cueto did the show.”

The left joined that night. But the Peruvian Cueto was not the only left-hander who made headlines at the Nacional, before 14,337 paying spectators at the Nacional. My father wanted to be 14,338 but he had to save: Mom and I were five months pregnant.

The first flash of the match – which ended 2-2 – was for Pelusa. At 39 minutes into the first half, Maradona took advantage of an error by Héctor Chumpitaz – allow me the license – and a “strong left-handed shot”, as described by the El Comercio chronicler Guillermo Alcántara, defeated Darío Chacal Herrera. Leguía tied at 5 minutes, then Moreno put the Bicho ahead and at 61 minutes, an own goal by Minutti closed the scoring. A few final oles, gentlemen in the West listening to Pocho on radio Ovación, and the aroma of the anticuchos that smoked from Paseo de la República, ended the meeting that was not yet historical at the time.

The most curious thing about this game, Maradona’s first in Lima, was precisely what happened when it ended. Diego, who over the years was going to inspire films, documentaries and streaming series that they would talk about from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires, patiently searched for César Cueto, sitting on the substitute bench and with the final whistle of referee Sergio Leiblinger, He approached him to fulfill the dream of one of his brothers, it is not known if Hugo or Lalo, who had made a wish of him before leaving La Paternal, with his diver Puma and his Harvard University jacket.

Maradona himself told La Crónica, which published the note on July 5. “It’s Cueto’s shirt. He is a great player and I admire him. I am taking it to Buenos Aires because my brother asked me for it as a gift. When I play with them, one says it’s Cubillas and the other Cueto ”. That shirt, an unprecedented long-sleeved adidas model that, unlike the sailor collar worn by the Argentina team in 78, had a red round neck, is today a rarity among collectors. “It can be found in the international market, but its price does not go below 1,000 dollars,” explains a Maradonian collector who prefers to keep his name in reserve. Basically, because one of those models has just repatriated from Argentina. Curiosity: he traveled back in the charter of the national team, after the triple date of the Playoffs in October.

“When I play with them, one says it’s Cubillas and the other Cueto,” was the last thing Diego said the first time he set foot in Lima. An alien on the Expressway. Surrealist poetry before Los Maradona played at being Peruvians, sometime.