The Guaimaral neighborhood has been characterized by showing great sports talents, especially football. Players like Alfredo ‘La Perica’ Fontalvo, José Tuta and Juan Barbosa, among others, have come from this place. In addition, important footballers have lived in this sector in the history of red and black, such as the Guajiro Arnoldo Iguarán.
Exactly Today, 25 years ago, Samir Rangel was born in this neighborhood, who from a very young age and without knowing it was destined to be a professional footballer and perform in one of the most ungrateful positions in football, goalkeeping.
“I started playing as a central defender and I liked it, I played in different national and departmental tournaments in that position when I went to live in Bogotá with my mother at the age of four,” Samir told The opinion.
The return to Cúcuta. At the age of 9, he would bring him the position in which he would begin to carve out his future, “at school is where I get the love of being a goalkeeper, but I did it to distract myself with my classmates,” he said.
Time passed, Samir grew up and with him, the dream of living from football. For this reason, after finishing school, he returned to Bogotá to do tests in Santa Fe, where he spent around four months, until he returned to Cúcuta to be part of Liverpool FC, with whom he would play the national youth tournament for two years. followed.
Emigrating from the city crossed his path again and on another occasion he arrived at the Dilex in Bogotá, the school run by Miguel Augusto Prince, a former red-black technician, who opened the doors and brought him closer to Cúcuta Deportivo in the capital of the country. sub 20, who directed the former physical trainer Julio Charales.
“In that Cúcuta I shared with Luis Miranda, who was taken by Prince to the professional team after a preseason game we played against them in Bogotá,” said Rangel, who is 1.93 meters tall.
At the beginning of 2017, his first job offer arrived, the Angostura Fútbol Club wanted to have him among their ranks to play the second Venezuelan division, opportunity that he turned down for financial reasons.
Hell
A few months after having said no to the proposal of Venezuelan football, the possibility of packing his bags and going to El Salvador came, where they ‘painted’ a fantasy world before traveling, to end up being the opposite.
“A coach I had contacted me, he told me that they asked him for a goalkeeper and he thought of me, He reiterated that he did not earn much money, but that the experience would serve me well. So I left everything in God’s hands, ”Samir said.
And the thing is, the thing ‘smelled’ bad from the beginning, he himself had to take out of his pocket to pay for the tickets and per diem in El Salvador, in addition, the technician who served as an intermediary, asked him for money for having gotten the contact “I did it out of the ambition to play professional soccer,” he said.
“When they told me about going to Salvadoran football, they told me that everything was already arranged with one team, but it was all a lie, they took me to try two teams, remaining in the Aspirante de Jucuapa in the second division, in the I couldn’t play because the papers didn’t arrive on time, ”Samir said.
The Cucuteño goalkeeper had not finished landing in Salvadoran lands, when Colombian players were already calling him to ask if what they had offered him was being fulfilled.
“While I was in need because I was not playing and the team was not paying me anything for the same, the person who contacted me in Colombia was showing my videos and telling my story, to be able to take more young people with lies, ”said the Cucuteño.
And he added, “the coach who took me, used my image and dumped me, not to mention that the boys told me that this person asked them for up to 15 million pesos to connect them with a guy in El Salvador ”.
Samir was the first and only one who traveled to Salvadoran lands under promises of at least to be playing professionally, and he adds, “I was the screen of the entire show, I told the pelados the truth so that they would not fall.”
The goalkeeper said that there were people who paid what this subject asked for, but to whom there was not even a trip to try their luck in Central American football, while he agreed to have paid 8 million pesos, money that was distributed by the intermediary in Colombia and the contact in El Salvador.
“I realized that everything he said was a sham and I walked away from him in January 2018, after I went to the new club where I went to try (Luis Ángel Firpo of the first division) and stayed, I also scammed them by making them put a advertising of him on the uniforms in exchange for $ 25,000, money he never gave, ”he said.
Once he was released from this character, the problems for Samir did not end: the new team did not pay their salaries, so he did not have enough to eat and live, but experienced players in the club offered him their hand.
Once the season is over, in mid-2018, Rangel goes to the Udet de El Tránsito in the second division, with which he remains until mid-2019, before returning to Colombia for not enduring both the economic and violent situation that he is experiencing. the Central American country.
“In El Salvador I wanted to go back many times, they gave me fits of despair.”
Heaven
After his return to Colombia, he received a call from Andrés Castañeda, a teacher he had during his time at Cúcuta Deportivo and who invited him to be part of a project in Medellín that aimed to export players.
“That’s when I get the opportunity from Portugal, one of the people makes a contact with a representative here, in which he brings us three players where supposedly we had already come to sign a contract,” said Samir thinking that history would repeat itself.
This time they did not ask for money, but again, not everything was as told, they had to get to test a third division team.
“We do the tests, but for document reasons and because the person who took us was asking a lot of money from the team for us, we couldn’t stay there,” he said.
So the contact in Portugal told them that they had to return to Colombia, but Samir ignored it, he sought contacts on his own and through Héctor Oviedo and Jhon Murillo, professional footballers, He ended up meeting a Venezuelan coach who took him to the club where he currently plays, Oliveira de Frades.
In this team, which belongs to a city with the same name and has 4,000 inhabitants, He has managed to win the trust of all, although in his first game they were defeated 3-0.
“After losing that game, we won at home and I covered a penalty and the rebound from it, from there, the team does not lose, we have 11 games counting visitor and home”, and added, “I came to this team to save it from relegation and today we are leaders with the possibility of being promoted to Second B. ”
Work, family and language
Samir Rangel worked in Portugal in a restaurant and in a company that makes wooden furniture, to help his family in Colombia.
“In March we stopped receiving salaries for football, but I never stopped training, I knew that life was going to go on,” he said. Then, last August, he lost his grandmother, who was like his mother, the only person who made him go to Cúcuta.
“That put me in an attack of depression, sadness, but there were two key words that kept me firm, perseverance and faith, I knew I had to resist and that this event would motivate me,” he argued.
The language was undoubtedly important, Samir remembers that he did not even know how to buy a roast chicken, “I said chicken, but they did not understand me because here they speak British English, I did the signs of chicken and neither, until they understood me and they said ‘frango’, that’s how chicken is called in Portuguese, “he said with a laugh.
Today he already speaks Portuguese 100 percent, in addition, he considers that Portugal is a very different country from Colombia, narrating that people abide by their laws and treat everyone with the same respect, regardless of profession or trade.
The family supports him, they understand that he is fulfilling his dreams and that they were made to make them come true.
“My family did not find out about the problems that I had in El Salvador because they had their own problems and I did not want to put them together with mine, that is part of growing up, facing the acts,” said the goalkeeper who refers to David Ospina, Iker Casillas and Franco Armani.
The red-black dream
He had to leave his Physical Education studies to dedicate himself to soccer, his goals are to be in a first division team, wear the Colombia National Team shirt and retire from the team he has been a fan of since he was five years old.
“Ehe love for Cúcuta was born from my stepfather, he took me to the stadium in Bogotá and its surroundings when the red-black played in the B there in 2001. In addition, I have gone to see him in various parts of the country, I was also in the three games of the promotion home run in January 2015, ”he recalled.
The current situation of the team is not alien to him, he does not hide his sadness and hopes that this crisis will be solved soon.
“Dreams can come true, you have to believe in yourself, it is not so much to fulfill your dreams for others, it is to learn to fulfill your own. Many times we make that mistake, of wanting to be what our parents want us to be, regardless of whether we are happy or not, so we have to look for our dreams to find happiness “, he concluded.
Julián Pérez | Journalism practitioner
