For the umpteenth time I sinned from chauvinist nostalgia when I took advantage of an alien conquest to claim a pilgrim Bolivian presence in a highly competitive international soccer fair. I am going to evoke, then, Juan Manuel Peña, one of the best Bolivian footballers in history and, together with Marco Sandy and Óscar Sánchez, the most legendary center-back that our contemporary football has had. The excuse is none other than the Europa League that Villarreal has just won, after winning an eleven penalty shootout against Manchester United.
The central Santa Cruz (1973) played for Villarreal between 2004 and 2007. With the Yellow Submarine he played in the 2005-06 Champions League, reaching the semifinals against Arsenal. Not a few of us remember that South American Villarreal – with Forlán, Riquelme, Sorín, Arruabarrena and Senna, in addition to Peña – who was only one penalty away from touching the final of the main continental tournament. The calendar marked April 25, 2006 and the second leg of the semifinal was played, which in the first leg, in London, Arsenal had won 1-0. The match was 0-0 and, with two minutes remaining, Riquelme had the chance to become as immortal for the Spanish as for the Argentines. He had to score a penalty to take the game into extra time. In the rival arc was the German giant Lehmann, who, in a preamble to what he would do a few months later (in the 2006 World Cup quarterfinals), blocked the shot from the Argentine star. The rebound came to Peña, with no chance to make up for his teammate’s mistake. Everything ended in a draw and Arsenal went to the final. It was the furthest a Bolivian footballer went in a Champions League. And until this Wednesday the 26th, it had also been the furthest Villarreal had reached in a continental tournament.
“When it seemed that in football nothing new could ever happen … A goalkeeper saves the last penalty against another – and come to Riquelme, so many years later: Villarreal is champion”, tweeted the Argentine writer Martín Caparrós, an unrepentant boss. minutes after the shot that also scored the Argentine Rulli, Villarreal goalkeeper, and the one that blocked the goal of United De Gea. I usually agree with almost everything Caparrós writes, especially when it comes to football, but in this case I have to take the liberty of adjusting a couple of “details” of his sentence. One: more than revenge, Rulli redeemed Riquelme, who in 2006 executed the penalty that ended the Spanish team’s feat in a very bad way. And two: if the goalkeeper’s feat had a redemptive power, it was not only in favor of his compatriot, but of all that Villarreal of 2006, that Villarreal in which we Bolivians were so proudly represented by Juan Manuel Peña, our Yellow Submarine.
GOD IS ROUND
SANTIAGO ESPINOZA A.
Journalist
@EspinozaSanti
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