What monster are we born like this? What's wrong? This creature is now absolutely out of control. Damn the English who invented football in Sheffield, giving birth to something that will soon spiral out of control for all of us, now completely unable to tame and dominate it. Damn Argentinians, partly because Argentines are always involved, like it or not, and partly because they never mind their own business. But above all because they brought this sport to South America. And it doesn't matter who was to blame: whether it was Buenos Aires FC, the oldest club in South America, which is now gone, or one between Gimnasia La Plata or Quilmes, in a lifelong struggle to decide who is the oldest existing club in Argentina, as they both date back to 1887 and both claim this advantage which does not ensure medals anyway. Now, after all this hell though, it just doesn't matter. Curse the Brazilians and their joy, those cursed samba dancers who have made this sport an earthly religion, a mystical experience. A sacred ritual. Curse the Uruguayans, the first who created the myth in this continent and won a world championship, and also because they are the ones who today sent this incompetent referee, this Angel Eduardo Pazos. Curse all South America, with its madness. Her warmth. His character. Damn "football", no longer a sport now, but only and only an overflowing pagan delirium. May God have mercy on him, if this game is needed, only in Peru, in my Peru. It seems impossible that Chico, the boy witness of history, is now thinking all this, just hours before he was happy and laughing, free and carefree in the streets of his neighborhood, even if he was more correct to say "Distrito", because that's what they call the neighborhoods in Lima, "Distritos", of "San Miguel", At the age of ten. In the midst of hell, in the midst of a roaring, wild tide, ……….. * * * May 24, 1964. 12:30 p.m. Chico has just finished his lunch, he gets up from the table of his house and like every holy day, whether it is pouring rain or hot sun that literally cooks the earth full of dust, he opens the door of his house, greets his dog Dress up and run to the corner of "Calle 9" and "Calle 12", right next to the "Parque de la Leyendas", the zoological park that was inaugurated in those days, to be part of those twenty children who every holy day challenge each other- the other to death with that "pelota" of rags. Chico is happy with all this, so pleased that then this makes a special day for him. His father Alberto, after great sacrifices, because a worker in Peru, in the 60s, did not earn very well, (even now to be honest), managed to buy two tickets, one for him, and one for Chico , to go watch the Peru game. Frankly, Chico would have preferred to watch Peru play Alianza de Lima, the team of his heart and his family, that fantastic team that wears vertical white and blue stripes all year round, except in October, when, in honor of the "Senor de los Milagros", (the patron saint of the team), Alianza dresses completely in purple as the only ones in South America. However, the prices to fulfill this desire are exorbitant and in case his father Alberto would be forced to bring with him the other four children, strong fans of the Peruvian giant but not attracted to the idea of watching the national team, this would be too great an expense for his family. Fortunately, Peru are only interested in Chico, happy to enter a stadium for the first time, even if it is not Alianza. 
But it doesn't matter. Today, for the first time, he will enter a real stadium, with a real green pitch, and not the only ones seen in some rare photos from the barber whenever he accompanies his grandfather, or those imagined alone in the middle of all that dust on "Calle 9". No sir. Today everything will be fantastically real. Chico is not "in the skin", as much as he "forces" his father to appear at the stadium almost two hours before the game. The stadium in question is "L'Estadio Nacional de Lima", more commonly known in the city as "El Coloso de José Diaz", the stadium that in a few hours will become the scene of the greatest football tragedy in history. The scheduled match is Peru U21 against Argentina U21, a match worth qualifying for the Tokyo Olympics to be held next month in Japan. Argentina is the favorite. Argentinians always start as favourites. It's in their DNA, although they hardly reach the finish line, except for a period of time when a certain Diego Armando Maradona played on the field in the "albiceleste camiseta", and that's another story. Only one point was enough for "albiceleste" to take that day in Lima to qualify. Instead, Peru needed just the win. The atmosphere in Lima's colossal stadium is already fired up long before the game kicks off, not least because of the fiery passion the Peruvians offer to cheer on their team. No, no! The atmosphere is hot also because that day in this match, in a stadium that can hold about 50,000 people, (with doubts, yes or no), there are actually 68,000 people packed together. Now you can imagine the environment. A powder keg in the open air. A minimal spark is enough. Chico and his father take their places in the sector immediately to the left of the field, behind the goal that in the first half will assist the attacks of Argentina. They try to make a place among an inhuman crowd. An hour before kick-off, if a stranger wanted to have fun and throw a coin from the height towards the "National" stadium, it would never touch the ground, given the density of people concentrated that day in relation to the actual space. This is South America. And South America, especially in those years there, is a world unto itself. I have never seen such a thing …. No no, damn the English and that monster who created football. It is no longer controllable in the mind of each of us. It cannot be left aside even when it is time to go to bed and "put it in a drawer". No! He, now, is part of us. The match, meanwhile in "National", begins. The Peruvians start the match strongly as expected, but the Argentinians are clearly superior technically and tactically, they stay higher without many problems. The first half ends with white nets. So both teams head to the locker room with the score 0-0. The stadium shakes. It is like a pot that has lost its safety valve. He wants a goal. Chico will remember years later that every time Peru attacked during the first half of the game, the roar of the audience was so loud, like the launch of a rocket towards the space, that it could leave him deaf. Scary. The game restarts. The "song", however, is practically the same as in the first forty-five minutes: Peru attacking with heart, Argentina orderly and calm. I hardly notice those eleven guys in trouble and without football logic who don't even know what they are looking for. "And where did they learn to play?" Argentina controls. Argentina always controls. In fact, they even manage to find the advantage after a quarter of an hour in the second half with Nèstor Manfredi, a Rosario Central player who frankly will not have a great football career, but that day, from a corner kick, he returns and sends a torpedo right under the Peruvian transom. 0-1! Chico will later show that for a good minute in "Coloso" not even a fly was heard and not only but in the stadium they could hear the breath of the Argentine players returning to the midfield after the goal. Happy, but not that much. The game restarts and continues with the Peruvians standing in theirs but their legs, let's be honest, are what they are, until……. exactly five minutes to the end when the Peruvian striker Victor Lobatô sets it up. 1-1. 
A goal of unprecedented ugliness: a very lucky robbery, which seems to have almost come out of the tactics of the best coach. bad in the world. But Peruvians just don't care about that. Now Peru believes in itself, it really does, except that the Uruguayan judge we mentioned before, Angel Eduardo Pazos, inexplicably, (even if in South America everything seems inexplicable, but in reality everything has its own well-defined logic ), cancels the goal! Open and! It's the end of the world! 
The spark of an explosion was given. Within seconds, the history of South American football will change forever. A man weighing more than a hundred kilograms, whose identity has never really been known, but who will go down in history with the nickname "El Negro Bomba", climbs the perimeter fences, enters the field and tries to hang himself the judge with both hands: "Hijo de puta. Tu es un hijo de puta", (son of a whore, you are a son of a whore) he shouted at the top of his voice. 
Well, as soon as the police notice his action, they release the dogs towards him, they catch him and start beating him wildly with sticks. Meanwhile, the apocalypse happens in the stands. No one likes this kind of treatment reserved for "Negro Bomba". Many other fans invade the field, one even with a broken bottle in his throat stops just a few meters from the referee. Meanwhile, the referee at this moment whistles the end of the match and runs away to the dressing room, sensing what would happen, followed by the two teams. From the stands, everything flies to the field. The police respond with tear gas. The audience, in a desperate attempt to survive, rushes to the stairs above where they can breathe, but now the gas has arrived from everywhere. The scenes are hallucinations for the public who are present as witnesses. Complete chaos, eyes destroyed by tear gas, airways completely blocked and vision equal to zero, literally everything happened there. Women are used as shields. Children are violated in the same way as animals. Some people stripped to use their clothes as gas filters. 
The public, which had previously climbed to the highest places of the "National" stadium, returns en masse, crushing those who tried to climb. Chico remembers those moments very well "I died but I rose again. I don't know why I'm here today to tell you this story. I don't know why God chose me. I know there must be a chosen one. There is always a chosen one. Maybe not, but it was God who chose me, but in return he wanted my father's sacrifice. He took me to a corner of the stadium and covered me with his body, filtering the air and every child thanks his father for giving him life, I thank my father for saving him. He will always be my hero." de Lima. Someone talks about 318, others about 322. Not even wars, sometimes, have caused so many victims in a single day. As if what happened was not enough, immediately after the game, and in the following days, one begins real persecution: many police officers were arrested.For thirty days the Peruvian government suspends constitutional freedoms and enforces a curfew. It was the end of the world. 
The great German philosopher Friederich Nietzsche said "All great things must wear monstrous and terrifying masks to be able to make an impression on the heart of mankind." From here, many other monsters invaded football afterwards, with much more terrible and famous names: Hillsborough, Heysel, Bradford, Lenin, or Luzniki if you prefer (the Russian tragedy of 1982 that the Russian government has always tried to cover up). just to name a few, but none, and I repeat none, before that day, except Ibrox in 1902, had decided to appear in the world of football like that of Lima, and perhaps, we hope, this tragedy will never be repeated. That day, the "monster" broke the world of Latin football forever, that day Chico knew at the same time the biggest smile and the biggest pain of his life. Yes, because that day, May 24, 1964, changed his life forever and that of thousands of people, now forgotten. Now that date does not exist in the minds of football fans. Gone forever like a piece of silver paper blown away by the wind. And God, almost as if belatedly feeling guilty for that unprecedented tragedy, as if apologizing for that innocent blood shed absolutely senselessly that day, because of that creature that was now out of control, decided to make amends as soon as possible. very much so that it was possible to review the celebration of May 24 with other events. It seems to have partially succeeded. So on this date, Latin America will remember in fact, in 2000, one of the most beautiful "Superclasicos" ever played, with a 3-0 victory over the legendary Bocas in the quarter-finals of the Libertadores, decorated with a "tunnel " (passing the ball between the legs) by Juan Roman Riquelme to the opponent Yepes to enter the anthology of football and then a goal by Martin Palermo to cause tremors in the extra minutes…….. Also in on this day, in 2014, the first historic derby will be played, between two teams from the same city, in the final of the Champions League between Atletico Madrid and Real Madrid. If that wasn't enough, also on May 24, 1966, a man named Eric Cantona will be born. The reincarnation of the "God of football". A legend. One of the strongest and most controversial footballers ever. Heaven has sought a remedy for that tragedy which has now passed. He tried hard and maybe succeeded a little. After the massacre at the Estadio Nacional de Lima, it also changed the history of football and the lives of many other people. ____________________ Translated by Pierre. Dated May 24, 2014 Sport Vision / Hour of Champions
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