Juan Manuel Vargas: the story behind his new challenge, studying Sports Management in Peru

Clarification: This note was originally published in August 2021. It has been updated with the author’s permission.

This is also crazy and for that very reason, brave: studying to be a sports manager in a country with its clubs in eternal crisis. Juan Manuel Vargas placeholder image He might be enjoying his winnings, but he’s crazy, that is, crazy in the most bizarre sense of the word. He has always wanted to discover what is behind that door that nobody opens —ask the props of the ‘U’ 2004-, he has always been a rebel without a cause – let’s look at the cameras of the Videna— and he has always known how to listen to his elders —to Puma Carranza, Tyson Galliquio, Cuto Guadalupe—. He has walked with these gentlemen in recent months, aware of the problems of the ‘U’, aware that it is not enough just to say that one is a fan to contribute but that it is urgent to study. The fans who go down to the court have to go through the classrooms first. And, finally, he has been close to Jean Ferrari, the new administrator of the University, with studies in Sports Management and Law, in whom he has seen that kind of insanity that infects: facing a powerful creditor from the street and defeating him. And that people believe that the miracle of saving their club is possible.

For this reason, and because he is already 37 years old and football already has a past for him, but could have a future, Loco Vargas, Chucky de Magdalena, decided to enroll in the Master in Sports Management at the Johan Cruyff Institute, whose name itself itself is a revolution. I do not doubt that it will be the delegate of promotion VIII: that’s how leaders are.

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His career in Italy and Spain has served to guarantee the future of his family, a wife and five children. And when from the University they approached him with the proposal —impossible to compete with any market, due to its discretion—, Vargas asked for a few hours to talk with his family. You had to move the house, settle in Lima, see schools, get used to a routine like the Lima one that, let’s agree, is not Florence or Seville. But above all you had to love. Puma Carranza spoke to El Loco and it was difficult to convince him. He called it Guadalupe and it was good. Something was missing. A person close to the player tells that one of his daughters told him:

“Daddy, why aren’t you in the newspapers anymore?”

His last official match had been in May 2016. His last goal with Betis a month earlier. The last time he played for the national team in March: the day of the horrible 2-2 with Venezuela in Lima. The night Vargas could barely walk.

After weeks, he spoke with El Comercio, long, in the barbecue area of ​​Campo Mar U. He was so honest with himself, so hard with his own mistakes, so accurate with what was coming for him, he said, among other things, that he lived “today, tomorrow only knows how cute Daddy” – that published the note, he left the media, trained as far as he could and saved the descent, he dedicated himself to his family and only made news, real news, now that he returns to be one more student. And who knows, college.

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Juan Manuel Vargas placeholder image he will be, in a few months, a new sports manager with professional studies, in the country that has no management. I hope that the rumor of a possible return to U 2021 to say goodbye does not move you away from this purpose. He will join the list of former national champions such as Jorge Cazulo, Leao Butrón, Diego Penny, Julio García and Miguel Torres, who also understood that soccer is played on desks. Knowing it, and having your ID photo go viral, is one of those few joys that jump out at me when I go to Twitter. The size of that news, and what that example of a man who has everything means, is measured much more than in retweets.

It’s called starting over. //