Alejandro “Papu” Gómez He will play football again in October. He will do it in Paddishof the Italian B series, after fulfilling the sanction for Doping. Meanwhile, it retains a rare privilege: it is the only champion footballer in Qatar 2022 who shared team with the current team coach, Lionel Scaloni. It was in the 2014 season. The former Arsenal y San Lorenzo He came from football Ukrainewhile the current DT burned his last cartridges as a professional footballer.
In an interview with the journalist Julián Polo For the cycle “Visitor”Papu told everything that the current DT of the scaloneta helped him in his early days in Bergamum -City in which she still has waiting for her return to the courts- and detailed what was the main virtue of the coach when assuming the reins of the National Team.
“In the management part It was very alive and intelligent. He made a very good renewal in the selection after Russia 2018, with boys who were very hungry. Surrounded Leo well [Messi] with talented players who were going to kill them, ”recalled the Papu. And he added, about the day to day of the scaloneta:“Is very close to the playerand that liked the footballer: he goes straight and does not say boludes. The results began to arrive and that generated an atmosphere of harmony. ”
Gomez remembered how his first games were in the selection of Scaloni’s hand: “To me, when he calls me, It came from being the player of the month of the Italian league in September and in October. I was summoned and I didn’t play a minute. It was difficult, because I share with the best in the world. But never an ass face, ever nothing. I trained to die, ”the papu evoked.
And he continued: “I understood my role and wanted to be there. Leo [Scaloni] He knew me as a person and knew what he could give him outside and inside the locker room. I would have liked to play more. I ended up playing the Copa América and being important, demonstrating that I could play, ”he said.
Then, Papu told how the story of the first call for Cristian “leave” Romero to the selection: “I remember that at that time that Scaloni was looking for a left center. I was not yet summoned. They were looking for a left -handed central and came to see him Palomino to Atalanta. He comes, he tells me, and I say ‘Take yourself to Cuti because it’s a crack’. He didn’t tell me anything. I said ‘Come, summon me’. In the end, first he summons me and one or two calls later calls Cuti, who had already been following him Samuel and Ayala. Extraordinary, I never saw something the same. ”
And he told how he encouraged Cuti, who at that time played in Atalanta: “I always chopped. We played against Rome and said: ‘Look that you will play against Dzekotoday you don’t touch a ball. ‘ He told me: ‘Ah, yes. You’re going to see. ‘ And Dzeko didn’t play a ball. We played against Inter, with Lukaku and Lautaro. I said: ‘You know the dance they are going to give you!’. And he told me: ‘Today I break them both.’ And they didn’t touch her. It has character, personality. Obviously the ball out of the ball was greatly improved. It improved in several aspects, but I already had it inside. The rest was polishing. Time, aggressive, impressive”.
“When I got to Atalanta They were the Tanque Denis, Maxi Moralez and Scaloniwhich was half painted, ”said Papu on those days of September 2014.“ Leo was 36 [años]came from the Lazioand already in the Atalanta I had quilombos: They had separated it, they wanted to clean it … But he trained with us, ”said Gomez, formed in Arsenal de Sarandí and remembered passing through San Lorenzo, but did not be summoned by Scaloni to the National Team after the World Cup in Qatar 2022.
On those days of today’s coach of the Argentine National Team, the Papu added: “He did not play much, but He trained to die. An extraordinary professional. And when I get to Atalanta, I moved to the same neighborhood as him. We lived next to and we were going together every day. He was the person who helped me from day one with everything: to buy a car, to look for a house, ”Gomez evoked.
And what was Scaloni like as a footballer? “Unbearable, in good sense. I was active all the time, with a lot of energy. Tiring jokes, training, all the time a thousand. He was very dear in the costumes” The first course he did, UEFA C, did so in Bergamo with three or four large companions that we were at that time. ”
In the interview of more than an hour, Papu also referred to the doping. To those moments in which his sports world trembled: ““ The first months were hard because I did not understand why it happened to me, why right at my best. It was the most top of my career after having won a World Cup. I had never happened to me in my career And you say: ‘Why?’ Life sometimes gives you these blows and surprises.
At that time -finishes of 2023 -Papu Gomez was angry: “I had a anger with everyone: with football and with the system. I do not become the victim, the responsibility was absolutely mine. The boludo was me for having taken a cough syrup that I didn’t have to drink, but hey, I ate two years of suspension. Tomás cocaine or you smoke a joint and give you six months. For having taken a syrup for my son’s cough I ate two years. Who enters the head? “He protested.
And he continued: “I ate it and here I am, fighting her. Yes I had a lot of anger and a lot of anger. It was hard for me to see football at the beginning. I couldn’t watch a football match, turned off television. For me football had dead And social networks, nothing. I wasolated and worked with a psychologist. It was a loop that could not leave. Working, working and working I could free me, ”he said. Without looking to be an example for anyone And simply telling his own story. In the first person.
The papu continued, as if it were a great catharsis. Necessary “When things are going well, they are all and when things are not right, No one is. There is everything. I was surprised with Many people who disappeared And I don’t blame it. Each one does what he can and reacts to certain things as he can. I also surprised people for good because you say: ‘Look, crazy. This person ever nothing and now is’. For both there are everything. I had good surprises and bad surprises. ”
