Santiago Solari & Facundo Sava – Great Budgies

Fresh meat, flavour of the month, new blood, firm-buttocked, ogle-worthy Adonis – all epithets that tend to be standing somewhere out back enjoying a woodbine, dusting off their well-worn polo necks when pegamequemegusta is being discussed. The new, pshaw, we’ve never been too fond of it – especially all these blog posts on up-and-coming players, which only take off when driven along by a particularly smooth scribe. Too often it’s an over-enthusiastic exercise in cradle-gazing, almost always without any real, first-hand experience or knowledge (hence its appeal for pretend journos, perhaps). Moreover, it involves too long a wait for what is ultimately a rather trivial pay-off, little more than an eventual smug bar-stool diatribe ending in the words “[...] profitable nor popular.” What’s more, in South American football, in particular, while somewhat unlikely, it can potentially lead to the very sales of young players bloggers tend to deplore. After all, foreign clubs have proven over and over again that their scouting policy is about as sophisticated as pegamequemegusta’s grooming techniques.

When it comes to new managers, though, we become quite energised. A couple of reflective, articulate respected men slowly asserting themselves on the scene gives us real hope for a Jota Jota-less day. A change from the same old faces on the managerial sorrow-go-round that make up Argieball could bring about some change, could (indirectly) bring some stability, could lead to thoughtful, timely critiques of the many avoidable ills that continue to undermine the game here.

Hence we were delighted to discover some of the finest prose being written about the game coming from ex-players such as Facundo Sava, who retired last year after a 17 years lanking around Ferro, Boca, Fulham and Racing among others, and Santiago Solari, the dreamy left-winger who was part of del Bosque’s glorious Real team ten years ago before getting bogged down in the torpor of Zanetti’s Inter. Crucially, neither seem content to merely add further bulk to the dangerously overstocked punditry pulpit, like the admittedly precise and loveable Diego Latorre. Rather, reading their pieces, one gets the impression that for now they are biding their time, that they have a real vocation for management, that this is a period of meditation – albeit public – as they prepare themselves for the inevitable time when they put their theories and experience into practice.

Santiago Solari, indeed, a magnificent piece of whose we translated a while back here on pegame, states as much in his latest column in el país. Titled ‘The simple Life of a Footballer’, he lists with great rhythm and style thorough his opening paragraphs many of the difficulties that beset the modern footballer: having every minute of the day accounted for, the constant changes in schedule, the travelling, missing one’s family, never being around for holidays, birthdays, school plays, etc., the rigorous diet he must follow, the injuries, taking five minutes just to make it to the bathroom, the relentless competition throughout one’s whole (short) career, not to mention the threat that one’s career could end at any moment “in any match or any training session”.

In the final paragraphs, however, he turns this Hobbesian catalogue of horrors on its head. He recognises that, despite being the son and nephew of football managers, and despite his own vast experience in different set-ups, he had forgotten how everything surrounding the footballer, even the organisation of what he regards as his own trials, essentially depends on others. At a coaching course organised by the Spanish FA last week, he finds his mind opened “to a new dimension where everything that happens on the pitch is but a fraction of the responsibilities that the position [of manager] entails.”

“The life of a footballer is really easy. No Anatomy, Pschology, Sociology or Law. No Training Theory, Team Management or Teaching Methods. Coaches, managers, physios, doctors, psychologists… These were the people who were thinking of every detail of every day of every year so that I, the player, didn’t lack a thing and could devote all my attention to achieving the objective: put a few crosses in and, if I could, score the odd goal.”

Much of this is ‘obvious’, of course, but it’s the depth of thought that strikes us like a slap from an aggrieved mother on one of our blind bumbling  careers through the park. 

We were similarly impressed with a piece by Facundo Sava that came out on Wednesday. Titled ‘Boca, team play’, it discusses the triumph of Falcioni’s men in the Argieball Apertura with two rounds left to play. The merits of Falcioni’s Boca are clear - solid defence, pressure on the ball, always a man in support, patience – and while their play may have been somewhat prosaic at times, they’re worthy champions for the simple fact that no other team in the division had the wherewithal to emulate such elemental virtues. El colorado Sava, however, who we always thought of as a dull-looking journeyman of a striker, spins the Orb of Power and inflects the story nicely. 

For in the run-up to the title-decider against Banfield last Sunday, the dominant media line was whether the oft-crocked Riquelme was going to play or not. Updates, worry, exasperated murmurings, the impression was that without their talisman Boca could still mess up the championship. This, Sava asserts, was completely wrong-headed. Indeed, the real secret of Boca’s success, he argues, was that such media speculation must have seemed as foreign to the players as it did to him, a disinterested observer paring his fingernails coolly observing Falcioni’s creation from afar. For the players were united, Falcioni had instilled in them such a conviction in the validity of their play that they “had no need to even look to the bench during a game.”

This quality reminded us of Coco Basile’s Boca, whose consistency saw them crowned bicampeones in 2006. The team they remind Sava of, however, were Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls, under the management of Phil Jackson. Facundo insists that Jackson’s book Sacred Hoops is obligatory reading for any coach in any sport. For the ‘Zen Master’, he says, managed (the key word, Mancini) to get a group of superstars to prize the collective over the individual. He convinced them that there was something larger than themselves to play for – avoiding the distressingly common occurrence whereby a team’s most gifted player can mutate into a burden, like being gifted four large ducks when you don’t have a freezer – thereby achieving a kind of synergy.

Gah, ugly word! Fair enough, a lot of this is obvious. Moreover, words like the offensive one just used smack of the wisdom of auld handmaidens, suspicious Brent-speak. Sava’s right, though. His point is timely, original and savvy shrewd. Having a keen analytic grasp of the game, or being an intellectual for that matter, is no guarantee of success, of course. However, it bodes well. Moreover, the cristaline quality of Solari and Sava’s prose, and the generousness of their opinions in general, make us think they’d have no problem conveying their points to a group of pampered, overly-developed men-children. Both both weigh their words judiciously, both appear to be independent thinkers, neither have any problem taking a stance contrary to the prevailing opinion, nor do they squirm when the obvious needs stating. 

Of course, neither are managers yet. Nor are they alone in their field. Abroad, too, there are several more reasons for hope in  the future of Argiemanagement in the satellites orbiting the mad moon Bielsa (there should be a moon named after Bielsa), the Genghis Khan of coaches.

At home, though, there’s a dearth of such folk: Diego Simeone should be one of the luminaries but his glib, blind bumbling at Racing, forever haughtily sniping at the short-sightedness of the pueblo whilst ignoring his own shortcomings, is but a blueprint for despair. Simeone’s the Man Who isn’t Here. The very title of Solari’s blog, El Charco (‘The Pond’), on the other hand, implies a connection to the auld country, that he’s not an eternal ex-pat; it reveals a sense of commitment, of duty. Likewise Sava, who keeps an even lower profile far from the fanfare of Olé. Nationalism is such a dirty concept, but we’ve come to believe that some of its cleaner qualities, namely a sense of solidarity, far from cheap xenophobia or base self-congratulation, ought to be rehabilitated – especially in such an outward-looking, insecure nation such as Argentina (or Ireland, for that matter). 

Yet, as we said, we’re not heralding a footballing revolution here. After all, the man who just won the Apertura is a gnarly old-timer whose face looks like a chewed up slipper. Novelty, indeed. However, in the absence of justice, Batman cometh; and in the shadow of the AFA’s neglect, strong, well-spoken personalities with a respectable record are what are needed. As Wenger said in an interview mark Arsenal’s 125th anniversary,

the development of a football club depends on individuals, who take the right initiative [sic?], take the right decisions, have the right dedication for the club [...]

Whether they bring anything inherently new or not, Facundo Sava and Santiago Solari, so far, look well on course to make a positive contribution to Argieball. They are but long-dead distant stars whose light has yet to reach us. In the meantime, Real-Barca, eh?

Security! Magellan, Drake & the AFA

A lot of philosophical faff is spoken about exploration, the final frontier and all that. Oh it’s all very well when some French poet says it, plonger au fond du gouffre, we lap that stuff up, too. Most of the time, though, such witherings are not much more than cowardice-baiting self-flagellation. Going where no man has gone before, a mere quest for minerals; travel broadening the mind no further than knowledge of the price of a coca cola from Ayres Rock to Macchu Picchu. Pegamequemegusta never got those North or South Pole guys, either, like lonely husbands locked in a windowless shed in winter searching for wet wipes in the dark; their wives must have been unbearable. Nor do we have much esteem for those moustachioed gents in ten-gallon sombreros carved from ivory, trotting around Africa discovering the longest-inhabited regions of the Earth. No, enough of these inconsequential failures, ignorant masochists for the most part. There’s another kind of explorer, though, whose deeds we can delight in even in the face of his cynically imperialist designs, the kind of person who when they set off had people on the quay muttering thanks to Jesus; we prefer the rogue. 

Our favourite explorers are those who clearly didn’t have any illusions about what they were doing, either because they were completely taking the piss, didn’t even consider themselves explorers or never intended on coming back. Hence, the high regard we hold for Magellan, and, somewhat begrudgingly, Sir Francis Drake. The only reason to like the latter is because he was such an absolute joker – a Queen-sponsored pirate who circumnavigated the globe stealing wine and gold from the Spanish wherever they went, just to fuck with their heads. Like the CIA, but just one bloke and a ship. Other than that, he was about as appealing as a year of wife-beaters and flip-flops. 

Magellan, though, ah Magellan. As a youth we’d draw our grubby finger across the beautiful, though distorted mess of the Mercater world map. Invariably we’d end up at the Strait of Magellan. We still don’t know why; we’ve yet to venture there. It exercised a sense of wonder on us matched only by the awesome phenomenon that is an eleven o’clock dusk in Dublin. Of course we were schooled in the feats of Magellan, his empirical demonstration, by proxy, of the globe’s theoretically palpable rotundity; his obscene death, riddled with arrows, run through with spears knee-deep in the breakers of his very own Saipan.  Only later did we look into Magellan. We learned that he personally ordered that some 1,200 bells, mirrors and trinkets be brought along, notwithstanding the clear space restrictions even with five ships, convinced as he was that whomsoever or whatever they would meet on the journey into the unknown, shiny stuff was bound to go down a storm. So it was that whilst waiting out the winter way down south in San Julián, in the yet unbaptised Argentina, that Magellan’s men managed to capture some simple giants with big feet (‘patagones’). Crude but effective, they distracted the friendly giants with jingling before slapping some irons on their legs, like a credit card company at Christmas.

The giants would later die of starvation on the prolonged crossing of the cruel, listless Pacific (which ol’ Fernando also named, of course – he had a gift for unimaginative names that actually sounded very cool, viz. Montevideo, ‘I see a mountain’ (?)), and Magellan himself would follow soon after. However, Magallanes knew he had succeeded already. He had earned the right to be a prick. Such a reckless invasion was not hubris, it was a death wish. He was disinterested enough in the fatherland to set off under a foreign flag in the first place (he was Portuguese but served the Hapsburg Charles V, the Holy Roman Emperor, Carlos I of Spain). His return to Europe offered little more than politicking his way round the Emperor’s Court for the rest of his days, where some indiscretion or other would probably see him wind up like the giants, in chains, anyway.

No, he knew it was pointless; the point was the risk, but not just risk in the sense of ideals or dreams, always likely to change. Rather, consigning himself to nothingness opened a space for him to live, to live ruthlessly, with disdain in his heart. Also in the winter of 1520 in San Julián, he had brutally put down a mutiny from the uppity Spanish unhappy to be serving under his Portuguese command. Some members of the party were marooned while several of the captains were hung, drawn and quartered on the coast for their insolence.

More than fifty years later, Francis Drake, el pirata par excellence, would find their rotten bones still hanging from the gibbets on the desolate shoreline. Indeed, they undoubtedly inspired the execution of one his own crew members, the gentleman Thomas Doughty. Drake, quite brilliantly in our opinion, accused him of being a traitor and a ‘sorcerer’. This did not go down well with all on board, leading Drake, who was also given to abrogating to himself the power to issue impromptu excommunications, to retort: “I have not… to do with you crafty lawyars, neythar care I for the lawe, but I know what I wyll do.”

They say Drake’s decision to behead Doughty was one of the defining moments in naval history as it established the captain of a ship as the absolute ruler in his sphere of influence, a floating dictator. That surprised us at first but it got our brain cogs chugging like a sweaty man in a beer-drinking contest in a steam train museum.

It’s all about security, you see. We’ll sacrifice almost anything in order to be safe. The threat of random violence is too terrifying. We’d rather nine none-too-guilty men go to prison than face the daunting prospect of self-preservation, or even be bothered at the bus-stop. Anything that happens to us, be it illness, crime or an accident, is by definition ‘unfair’ – someone must pay. Fair enough, all those things are horrible, but eliminating contingency costs. Fear and the prized principle of recompense, not any conspiracy, will lead to the abolition of man, in C. S. Lewis’ phrase. 

Now we’ve accused the AFA of many things over the years, but we never suspected they would be one of the organisations to advance this creeping dystopia. If anything, the antics of Grondona’s brave band of knights are more akin to the bluster of an Arthurian quest, with Verón as Lancelot, and Cristina the Lady in the Lake, or perhaps Guinevere. Yesterday, however, they unveiled plans for a new ticketing system to be applied in Argieball that includes some nigh-on draconian (not the pirate) measures.

Now this will directly affect you, dear northern one, as little as it affects Atlantic-bound, Primera-free pegamequemegusta. Yet you will no doubt agree, once the apple  is removed from your gob, that it’s curious to see a notoriously sluggish institution characterised by neglect suddenly wake up and take action –  under zero pressure to do so, no less. That the plan is rather misguided is less surprising, but its scale and ambition cannot be faulted.

The current system is much the same as anywhere else, in theory at least. Each clubs’ members, their socios, have first refusal. After that, anyone can buy tickets from booths at the ground, or from touts. Tourists tend to go on school tour-type jaunts, escorted to and from the game, and get royally gouged for the privilege (though they now have the option of going with these jocular fellows). 

The AFA, however, have decided that this system has to change. With next to no fanfare, the plan was announced on their website on Wednesday under the catchy title el Padrón nacional de aficionados, the National Supporters’ Register. From this December, supporters of first division teams (plus Riber, oddly enough) will be able to register their details with their respective clubs – you have to be aligned to some club, it seems – in order to be able to attend Argieball games and Argentina matches (though the system will be implemented later, of course). Once they’ve given their names and their DNI (national identity card) complete with photo and fingerprints, they’ll get an ‘non-transferable’ card with a magnetic strip that can be used to get tickets from ATM machines and other means of e-sales. Paper tickets will become defunct. Upon arrival at the stadium, the supporter will pass through a police checkpoint to make sure they are entering at the correct gate and their card will be inspected. Finally, at the turnstile their fingerprints will be scanned to ensure they are the person who bought the ticket. 

The man in charge of the commission to roll out the project, Fernando Casalla, stated that the idea is to “increase control and commercial exploitation of matchdays by eliminating the resale of tickets”. Moreover, the sale of tickets will  be federalised, available to all, as it will no longer be restricted to the stadium itself. Argiestadia will boast the finest gate technology in the world. The future will be bright and clean; order will be imposed. This, while it was not mentioned explicitly, will no doubt go down a treat with FIFA in the event of a serious candidature for the 2030 World Cup; likewise with whatever deal they’ve struck with credit card companies to have the supporters’ cards work in the ATMs. A juicy one, no doubt. (The banks here, distressingly enough for our barter-friendly soul, have grown in stature even in just the last few months since a law was passed guaranteeing everyone the right to a bank account, with many companies opening accounts in their employees’ names, boosting coffers considerably and grabbing them a whole new customer base that was somewhat isolated up to now – get your free credit card!).

That’s not all, though, In the meantime, according to Casalla, there will be health and safety benefits since the new system will make it much harder for undesirables to get into the ground. There already exists a blacklist of hooligans for whom clubs reserve a special right to refuse admission. From now on, they won’t even be able to purchase a ticket, and even if they appear at the turnstile in some crafty disguise their fingerprints will give them away. In this way, administration costs will be reduced and crowd safety increased. Filthy, grubby paper money will be done away with, credit-rich families will flock to the games, Coca-Cola-brand picnic baskets in hand, happy and secure, to cheer on their heroes.

It all sounds delightful, of course, but it’s too happy, it’s too clean; it hasn’t got enough snarl to it. It wilfully ignores the real state of things. Instead it conceives of the barras as mere cheeky chappies who’ll jive off with their paddy caps in their hands once they’re foiled by the beeping turnstile. (Goshdarnit, exclaim the ragamuffins, hey, who’s up for stickball?). This is , we argue, somewhat unlikely. Besides, it ignores the profoundly corrupt, twisted and symbiotic relationship between the clubs and the hooligans, who were never true patrons in the first place.

After all, the only real problem with the current system is that tickets tend to fall into the hands of the barras, free, of course, who then sell them on for their own gain. This sucks money out of the clubs, making them weaker as it makes the barras stronger. There’s no mention of cleaning up the clubs, investigations into corruption or even a window-dressing ‘wish’ to do the same. There’s no talk of sanctions for clubs who collude with the parasitic mafias who feast on them in the name of flag-waving love. Violence can be controlled by repression, cheap, faceless, machine-led repression, with no contemplation of the causes, no measures to stifle the activities of the mafias who extort money from every hotdog vendor and car-parker within a ten-block radius of the ground on matchday, earning tens of thousands of dollars per game. That the pie is so enticing explains the constant murders and battles for control of each club’s barra brava – not some schoolground tiff, as suggested recently on a ‘proper’ blog.

So the plan contains plenty of positives, especially considering it’s from the AFA. It’s pleasantly surprising to see the AFA take action on something, anything. Remember, the last time we heard from them was when they came up with the credibility-sapping 38-team tournament. Furthermore, the dystopian elements largely stem from the national identity database, which, while we don’t like it much, already exists so there’s not much point complaining about it. Likewise commercial control over consumer information is hardly anything new.

The problem is that it’s an answer to a question nobody asked. It doesn’t solve any of the real problems we outlined above. It also begs the question just what kind of football these well-documented fans are going to be watching. Perhaps the AFA should do something about sorting out the clubs’ budgets, the flogging off of young players, refereeing, the state of the grounds, policing, etc.

It’s also curious that the plan is so anodyne. Unlike the government, which has a fine eye for catchphrases and infectious marketing campaigns, the AFA is severely limited when it comes to PR. They could have named it something ‘grand’ like Operación hincha or positioned themselves, however falsely, as the custodians of the game, with something ‘dynamic’ like Somos la popu! (Reclaim the terraces!). The fact that they didn’t exposes the purely financial motivations at play here, the continuing lack of concern for the game, a profound disdain for the genius and pageantry that make Argieball so special off the field.

Put a machine in charge of something, however, and people see progress, safety. It makes them feel oddly superior no matter how much of their birthright they have to give up for the privilege. Make that transaction easier, sanitise it all, stick a recognisable brand on it, reassurance, no jostling, the policeman’s there to help you, listen to the jingling of the bell, see how shiny it is, sit down, consume, risk has been abolished, the sorcerers are in the stocks, turned to dust with a well-timed blow from an umbrella.

Railways & Chili Peppers

With a steep nose hammer on a four-foot switch channel,
John Henry raised it back till it touched his heels,
then the spike went through the cross-tie and it split it half in two -
35 cents a day for driving steel,
(He said sweat boy, sweat, you owe me two more swings)
I was born for driving steel.

Two things that get pegamequemegusta all warm inside are football and railways. We’re pretty sure most of the world’s ‘problems’ could be resolved with a return to that most human of technologies, the tooting power of steam. Today’s story joins these two brackets like a buck-tailed rivet. 

Argentine rail network superimposed on a map of a disfunctional peninsula in the northern hemisphere

For a quick glance at a map of Argentina’s infrastructure – what home is without one – will reveal the how the country was designed to be pillaged. Little or no thought was given to moving goods around the country, within its various cities and provinces. Instead, the railways, built for the most part by the two scaldiest imperial powers of the age, Britain and France, ensured that the riches of the land could make it quickly up to Buenos Aires, and thence to the bellies of the rich abroad. The laden ships leaving port would meet the poor of those same countries coming the other way. A quick buck, short-termism, always looking abroad for answers, no real faith in the land or people, confusion, despots, exploitative capitalism, a mess.

Moreover, the legacy of this private, capital-driven policy is that a third of the population of this vast country live in greater Buenos Aires. The cramped conditions exacerbate poverty and leave the people there with little else to do but shout and bludgeon each other over the head, if the news is to be believed. It also makes it delightfully vibrant and, arguably, contributes to its enormous cultural pedigree. On the whole, though, it’s excessive and unnecessary.

The problem was the radial design of the network, of course; the railways themselves were good. Work was plentiful and hands spread out across the land. Football was one of the few things the railway actually brought to the country rather than out of it. The network’s stations and workshops saw the birth of many a club and lent itself to the formation of various leagues in the years before the AFA was founded. Very few of these clubs remain.

One notable institution, however, Ferrocarril Oeste (literally ‘western railway’), is still in existence, albeit in the shadow world of la B gnashing their teeth alongside Riber Plei. One of their former players, Luis el Pupi Salmerón, had an interview in Olé last week (Spanish here). A non-too-easy-on-the-eye, journeyman of a second division striker if ever there was one, el Pupi ended up plying his trade in China. We bring you the interview basically because we thought it was funny.

More than that, though, it also throws some light on what players go through when they move abroad. Argentina’s tradition of mismanaging its own riches, sending them abroad and somehow ending up empty-handed, if it’s under threat politically, is very much alive and well in don Julio Grondona’s sphere of influence. The players leave early and haphazardly, even against their wishes. They are not just going to the big leagues either: more and more they move to leagues that heretofore were worse than the Argentine league. Odd; everyone loses. You make a sandwich, someone buys it off you, the money magically disappears and then to your horror you see the bastard leave it in the sun, the mayonnaise curdling, the ham turning green, the lettuce brown and the bread harder than a diamond-eyed coal-shoveller.

One could dismiss this as just ‘weird’ China stuff, as Pupi would no doubt say,  but we suspect that Salmerón’s experiences are not unique. For even the biggest clubs in the wealthiest leagues still seem remarkably careless when it comes to – whatever about their transfer ‘policy’ – helping players acclimatise. Some just get on with it, of course, and sure aren’t they played enough. Yet these random transfers can really mess up a player’s career, the chronic lack of stability making him a journeyman and depriving him of the chance for growth. He’ll probably be mis-used, misteated, forgotten, a puppy on the sixth of January (viz. Stracqualursi). Obviously, the clubs themselves lose out, too, wasting assets… One need look no further than Carlitos Tevez, whose career has been haunted by Boca’s selling him into the neon clutches of Kia Joorabchian.  

We though it was interesting and strangely charming anyway. Enjoy. Pegáme, que me gusta.

• So, what’s the story with China?

• In terms of football, it was grand, I scored a few goals and all but it was weird. When I left here it was roasting and when I got there it was freezing. I was all over the place, I didn’t know what the hell was going on. You know, they were all speakin’ Chinese, for jaysus’ sake…

• Well, yeah…

• Ha ha, yeah, but I didn’t have a clue what was going on. I had to use sign language, like a caveman. It was a mess. Besides, I don’t speak a word of English, you know?

• Very frustrating.

• You don’t know the half of it. I actually could have learned English, but I gave up after two classes… Then when I was in Shanghai, without a breeze, unable to even ask for some salt in a supermarket, I realised what an eejit i’d been.

• I can only imagine what your trips to the supermarket must have been like…

• Oh man, yeah. To find out which one was the tomato sauce I had to buy about ten different tins, but they were all bleedin chili peppers, hot bloody chili peppers. It was a joke… First i’d have to bite whatever i’d bought to find out what it was. And if I didn’t like it i’d have to throw it out. This one time I thought i’d bought some ham but it turned out to be some caramel yoke.

• So what did you eat, then?

• Ah any old thing. Later on I learned how to get certain types of meat. They eat a lot of fish, a lot of rice, a lot of duck. Later on I brought some stuff over from Argentina, like maté. I gave a couple of the Chinese lads some maté to try out. One of them liked it and he’d always come into my room going ‘maté! maté!’ I became good friends with that little budgie; he was the number ten.

• Were you able to communicate with one another?

• Whenever he’d come into the room, me and the other Argentine lad, Facu Pérez Castro, would speak to him through Google Translate. That was a real life-saver…

• You didn’t have a translator?

• Yeah, yeah, but he was some 20 year-old kid who didn’t have a clue about football. Let’s say we were working on tactics or something. He’d say something like: ‘The cone is your enemy, then kick the gate’, christ. He’d get me into trouble sometimes with the manager ’cause i’d say something and god knows what this lad was passing on. All of a sudden the gaffer’s voice would be getting angrier and angrier and I didn’t have a clue what was going on! That kid really wasn’t on out side: at one point when we’d lost a few games in a row, we were training and me and Facu realised the Chinese lads were taking the piss out us and the translator was pretending nothing was going on. ‘Facu, they’re bleedin laughin’ at us’, I was sayin’…

  
  

• What about the people?

• The people were grand. I didn’t get recognised much on the street but after the match they’d all come over to congratulate you or just say hello. ‘Popi, Popi’, they’d say to me, instead of ‘Pupi’. Every match was a full house. Once we were winning 2-0 and they came back to 2-2, and in the last minute I scored the winner. Everyone went mental and ran over to hug me: the players, the coaches, the water boys. I was thinking: ‘Why such a fuss, che?’ Only then I found out it was a derby! The translator told me, ha.

• And what’s the deal with football in China?

• It’s actually much better than I thought it would be. They’re plowing in the money.

• You’re back now, then. Where do you see yourself in 2012?

• I don’t know. When you finish your first asado with the fam, you say ‘no way am I leaving here’. I showed I could play in China and score goals there. So if they want me back there, they’re going to have to pay me what I asked for, considerably more. Otherwise i’d prefer to stay here. Not necessarily in primera as I know that things didn’t really work out for me with Banfield, but maybe in la B. If it’s in Buenos Aires, sweet, and if it’s Ferro, even better.

• Have you been watching the games?

• While I was in China I was always reading stuff about Ferro and Argieball, i’d check Olé everyday. I remember staying up ’til five in the morning to see River-Belgrano. The next day we had training and we were absolutely knackered. All the Chinese lads were saying they couldn’t believe that River had gone down.

• All in all, then, what do you make of your stay in China?

• It was tough because of all the things I was telling you about. Now they seem funny but at the time, man, I was going mental. Luckily, though, I learned a lot about another culture and actually became closer to my family.