The crack who played for Uruguay thanks to a survey and died at the age of 33 due to a missed goal

Titus Borjas He knew that in the decision about what he would do that December 19, 1931, his life could go. The doctor’s advice left no room for doubt: he had to avoid great efforts and intense emotions. And he not only couldn’t play soccer anymore, but under no circumstances could he go to that game in which Wanderers He had a chance of being a champion, because there was a high chance that his battered heart would not hold out. He thought of life after retirement and how close oblivion was to his deeds. He glimpsed how the glory achieved in Amsterdam was beginning to recede and guessed the ingratitude of those who had once idolized him. He also thought, as he did every day, of that brother whom the earth seemed to have swallowed in Buenos Aires. In how ephemeral everything could be. He felt more and more confident that he was forced to take the risk to see his teammates win the title on the court in 1931. Even if it could cost him his life. There were only four days left before his 34th birthday.

Rene Tito Borjas He had been born in 1897 in Minas, in the department of Lavalleja, into a typical Uruguayan middle-class family of those years. From a very young age he stood out for his ability to play ball, in a country that was beginning to dominate the world soccer scene.

thus came to Uruguay Onward, a team that in the 1920s, when amateurism still reigned, managed to participate in the First Division. It didn’t take him long to stand out as one of the great footballers of the championship, but he still had to take another leap in his career.

“He was the best in Uruguay Onward, who had a preponderant performance, but in 1922 there was a schism in Uruguayan soccer. The following year Wanderers brought him with other players and from the start, he came out champion”, Manuel Paredes, a lawyer specializing in domestic violence and at the same time historian of the team from the traditional Prado neighborhood of Montevideo, tells Infobae.

The division in football charrúa implied that there were two associations: on the one hand the Uruguayan Football Association (AUF), which exists to this day, and on the other the Uruguayan Football Federation (FUF). Wanderers presented teams in the two championships that were held at the same time, although in the FUF its name was that of Atlético Wanderers, where Borjas was a member.

Inside a football of stars, Tito was “the most complete forward of the time”, as defined by Paredes. In 1925 he also stood out in a very extensive tour that Nacional made through Europe, unusual from today’s parameters: it covered nine countries and lasted 190 days, in which 38 games were played.

Borjas was summoned to reinforce the team, something usual for those years: he arrived in the middle of the journey to replace Pedro Petrone, champion with Uruguay in the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924, that he had torn his menisci in a friendly against Barcelona. In the 12 games he played, Tito scored no fewer than 16 goals.

Since 1923 he was a member of the national team, although due to the institutional situation in football in his country he represented the team of the Uruguayan Football Federation. From 1926, when only the AUF remained, from the outset it hit with the Celeste the cry of champion in the South American of Chile.

However, two years later, when the team that was to defend the Olympic title in football was formed in Amsterdam, the leaders were not sure which centre-forward to take and took a curious step. “They decided -says Paredes- that it would be the people who chose him with a survey in the Mundo Uruguayo magazine, that it was for mass consumption because it brought everything for men, women and children”.

The numbers are staggering: in a Uruguay that had a population of nearly two million inhabitants, more than 140,000 votes were registered and the winner was Borjas, with 52,134, followed by 47,037 for Pedro Cea, later champion in the World Cup of his country.

Tito had a joking spirit and was one of those who sustained the spirits of his companions on the long boat trip to Europe. TO Robert Figueroa, who also played with him in Wanderers, made him believe that the ship was going to take a leap when it crossed the equator. “Figueroa tried to stay awake to find out if it was true, but at a certain point he fell asleep. Later Borjas told him that he had missed the little jump, ”says Paredes.

In Amsterdam a new Uruguayan coronation was built, in which Borjas had a key role twice. On the one hand, because he gave assistance to Hector Scaron to achieve the final 2-1 in the final against Argentina. On the other, because of the phrase he uttered at the time of giving the decisive pass.

“Tito Borjas jumps, beats Paternoster and combs the ball while shouting ‘Yours, Hector!’, knowing that Scarone arrives behind him. The story of that play was kept for generations and is a demonstration of how soccer, especially in the Río de la Plata, builds language from certain expressions. It’s like saying ‘now it’s your turn’ or when a responsibility is passed on to another person in any order of life,” Uruguayan writer Sebastián Chittadini told Infobae.

That “Yours, Héctor”, something in disuse today, was used for years in different situations and appears for example in “When plays Uruguay”, the song by Jaime Roos to encourage Celeste. “At the moment of giving way to the musicians, Jaime says ‘Yours, Héctor’ and it’s a soccer wink too”, explains Chittadini, who remarks: “It’s curious that that phrase used by Tito Borjas and that somehow overshadowed his enormous career, it occurred in what ended up being su last official match with La Celeste”.

Returning from Amsterdam, the champions were met with a massive reception in the port of Montevideo. Borjas was going through what should have been his happiest days, but the panorama of his life began to become increasingly bleak.

A personal situation afflicted him and made his character sad, despite his joking tendency. It had been a long time without hearing from one of his brothers, who had traveled to Argentina. “He was obsessed with it and it affected his whole life. The brother with whom he had the closest ties went to Buenos Aires on a personal venture with a partner and neither of them returned. Nothing more was ever heard of them. Possibly they were both murdered,” says Paredes.

At the same time, He began to suffer from recurring chest pains. Despite the fact that, as Paredes recalls, Tito had a very good behavior for a time when it was common for players to smoke and drink alcohol without too many restrictions, his physique abandoned him more and more and his level declined, so much so that he was left out of the Celeste that won the 1930 World Cup at the Centenario Stadium in Montevideo.

In 1931 he still came to play some friendlies with the national team against Hungarian teams, but in practice before a match against Nacional, the Wanderers doctors finally diagnosed that Borjas suffered from a heart problem and informed him of some very hard news: I had to give up football.

While Tito rested, life went on and the good progress of Wanderers in the championship too. El Bohemio was close to winning his fourth title and was going to visit Defensor in Parque Rodó on the last date. He needed a win to ensure consecration, since the National guard was just one point away.

Because of your health problem Tito was forbidden to attend the stadium. But in a telegram to his teammates before the game he made a forceful warning: “Only dead” he would miss seeing that match in which that achievement for which he had done so much could be consummated.

Knowing Borjas’ will, his family decided to lock him up in a house and watch him to prevent him from escaping. But in a distraction, one of the improvised guards did not notice an open window and Tito marched towards Parque Rodó, “perhaps looking for life or looking for death”, as Silvio Rodríguez sings.

Already on the field, Borjas experienced the clash against Defensor as one more. At the end of the first half, he saw the conquest coming when Figueroa finished off from an unbeatable position. He thought it had been a goal and even shouted it, but the ball went wide. His heart couldn’t take it.

Borjas fell ill and left the stadium to seek medical attention, but collapsed in a corner. Efforts to revive him were futile.. At just 33 years old, a piece of Uruguayan soccer history was dying.

The unfortunate news reached the stadium right away, but the match was not suspended. The Wanderers players had to face the second half knowing the death of their teammate and, even in those conditions, they achieved the 1-0 victory that gave them the title.

“Part of the press at that time assured that what happened to him had to do with a disorderly life. But the problem was purely cardiac. If you look at the images of the time, Borjas had an impeccable physique, without a gram of fat”, says Paredes.

The writer’s readers Robert Fontanarrosa perhaps they have recognized in the history of Borjas a few coincidences with one of his most famous stories: “December 19, 1971″.

The protagonist of this story is also a heart patient who, on medical advice, should not attend a transcendental match and who nevertheless ends up in the stadium, contrary to the prohibitions. The outcome, in both cases, is similar.

The fact that Borjas’s death occurred exactly 40 years earlier already seems to enter the realm of magic. Of that magic that Borjas gave away in abundance in a too short life.

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