Translated by Martina Ferlisi
1 – BRAZIL – CHINA
There’s no way in five-a-side football for the blind. Brazil, three-time Paralympic champion, will play for the fourth gold medal on four Olympics Games. In a magical and fluctuating semi-final, the full stadium, the Chinese opponents, aggressive, the Wang Yafeng goal that freezes everybody at the fourteenth minute. Finally to turn the game was Jefinho who scored twice and was a puller in the field.
Jefinho melhor do que o Neymar
“Jefinho better than Neymar,” the chorus shouts from the bleachers after the game. He happy blushes: “it is clear that it is a comparison that honours me. Neymar is a great player, so it means I am doing a good job here. Among other things, Neymar has always supported our team. We would love that he comes to see our final; we know that it will be not possible for the distance but feeling his closeness surely will help us to play a good game. “
Delayed goal
It was not easy, Jefinho confesses: “we were losing 1 to 0, and our best player, the captain Ricardinho was injured. We wondered: will we be successful, this time? However, we have been strong. “
And his two goals make the difference, celebrated on late because: “it was so beautiful that I could not believe I scored, so I waited for the reaction of the public to be sure!”
An audience that begins to understand when it can explode and when, instead, not. And if for the semi-final the stadium was already full, tomorrow, for the final, we expect the sold out.
2 – ARGENTINA – IRAN
The final will not be Argentina – Brazil, as we have predicted many times, last days. The Murcielagos perhaps pay a little the tiredness and fail to close the game. The Iranian players are skilful, agile and insidious. The result is an inconclusive game, a game of missed opportunities.
The bewitched door
The door mirrors, for both teams, seem bewitched. But for Argentina more. One above all: in the middle of the second half Froilan Padilla, said Coqui, has to take a penalty.
Few people know this, but it’s the opportunity of his life. Not only sportingly speaking.
An Argentinian law, promulgated before the Olympics, guarantees all Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic winners of medals a full pension, from forty years. And if some do not have much need, Coqui has it.
Nueva Esperanza
From Nueva Esperanza, a village of three hundred souls of the Santiago del Estero province, Coqui Padilla, comes from a very poor family. “We were eight children. I started playing football when I was five. We did not have the ball, though we invented it, making it with the socks or bags”. Since he, who has a progressive retinitis pigmentosa, already saw very little, his brothers made sure that the ball did noise, so that he could find it. At eleven years, he did his first medical examination, and at eighteen, he became completely blind. At twenty-five, his brother, who lives in Casanova, asked him to go to Buenos Aires to try to improve his condition. It was said that in Buonos Aires, they were giving to disabled a certificate to have some facilitations. He was not convinced: “Nueva Esperanza is such a small country that I did not even use the walking stick. I oriented myself thanks tothe cockcrow, the dog barking, hearing repetitive and known sounds. You can imagine how many more difficulties I found when I arrived in a large city.” He lived in an aunt’s home, but she struggled to deal with the blind nephew and she sent him away. Coqui, therefore, began a new stage of a complicated life; he lived on the streets and slept on the church steps, he lived with great difficulties, but at the same time with a new awareness of himself: “I was very scared at the beginning. I said to my brother: how can I get around in such a big city? How can I know which bus to stop, when it comes, how can I avoid the danger? Then slowly I managed to find my way. I started to be independent; I enrolled in a special school and I learned Braille and how to use computer. I had no idea that there was a system for the blind.” The turning point came when Coqui arrived to Roman Rosell Institute of San Isidro, Buenos Aires, where he began to play football. Then the convocation for the national team arrived when the trainer of his club, Martin Demonte, became coach of it and he is still the coach today. “Even today they make fun of me for my typical sentence of that period: I do not understand anything! The technical body spoke me about quadriceps and tactic and I did not even know what a gym was. “ In 2011 he travelled for the first time by plane, and debuted at an international tournament in Spain, precisely against Italy. “In that first game, I was so nervous and frightened. The Italian striker surpassed me like five times in two minutes and I was replaced immediately. The technical assistant reassured me and told me to play like I was training, I came back, I took the first ball, and I have not stopped anymore.”
Despite the successes with the team since that time, Coqui has not become rich. The pursue for athletes that he monthly receives from the ENARD, the Argentine public entity that provides support for Paralympic athletes through the citizens charge card, is not enough to grant him what he most wants: to be able to get out of the tiny apartment in Buenos Aires , Constituciòn area, where he lives with his wife and two daughters also blind.
With the pension that he would receive in the case of a medal, he could do that, but the bewitched door of yesterday evening threatened to cut him, again, outside. After his missed penalty and the end of the normal time, Argentina makes other two mistakes. Iran instead scores, and as we often hear in football match far more moneyed, in the lottery of penalties there is little to do, the player, who scores more, wins
Therefore, Iran deserves the victory. This is a big surprise for this tournament and Iran will play for a very difficult gold medal against Brazil. The Murcielagos’ defeat appears underserved; they were inconclusive and unfortunate, always supported by fifty chilled fans, in a stadium that suddenly we discover to be Iranian
The Argentinian reaction, who tomorrow will compete for the bronze medal against China, is a reaction of champions. All embraced, in tears but with a smile. Never mind … they murmur to each other, to be strong, even though they have much hoped in the Olympic final. “We did our best but it was not enough” – Silvio Velo concludes, the undisputed captain of Murcielagos, the only one to score in this bewitched evening. “I am sad, but we have to go on and win the bronze medal on Saturday.”
Thanks to the two Argentine journalists seated close to me. I do not know their name but they told me, in detail, this beautiful story, giving me the opportunity to share it. Yesterday, the atmosphere in the pressroom witnessed the human greatness of Murcielagos. Proud to love this team, a great good luck to Brazil!