Football Legend: Beyond the Ordinary

Coach’s biographer in 2012his first year as a coach at River Plate, and with whom he still exchanges some messages. «In the ’96 Libertadores that River won I wrote a note. The previous year he had missed a penalty in the semifinal, René Higuita saved it and River was eliminated. The following year he kicked from outside and scored against Universidad de Chile. I had to cover the final against América de Cali and in the first leg, there in Colombia, after losing 1-0, he approached me and said: ‘It was a nice note.’ It was not common for a player to come up to you and tell you that,” Borinsky says of that first face-to-face with Almeyda, with whom he later He would strengthen ties even by conducting interviews at his home in Azul.

That relationship would not end over the years. Not even Almeyda’s long career in European football – after Sevilla he went through Lazio, Inter, Parma and Brescia – cut that bond. “At that time it was not so common to write books about athletes,” says Diego, who had conducted a long interview with him before his first retirement. «Then at four years old he started playing again. It was striking to return at 36 years old,” he points out to highlight that special halo that has always surrounded Almeyda.. The famous 100×100 interview format of El Grafico, which Borinsky was in charge of, chose Almeyda as the protagonist. “When we finished I told him: ‘You have to tell your story and write a book.’ I threw it at him. “He related the anecdotes in detail.” Almeyda thought it was a good idea, but the project remained stranded. “That would be September 2009 and in the following two years I would only see him two or three times,” adds the journalist, who contextualizes those two complicated sporting years for River Plate. “I was in a critical situation and we couldn’t get together,” he adds about a story that ended with the historic relegation of the Millonarios and Almeyda taking the step from footballer to coach.

«In the middle of that year I went to a training session and I told him what we were doing with the book. We agreed that we would talk every week and that we would present him after being promoted and that he could play one last game with River if they had achieved it four or five days in advance. Until the last minute of the last game he was not sure of promotion,” says Borinsky, who at that stage as coach went to Almeyda’s house almost every Wednesday. «As River was in B, with all the pressure that that entailed, it wasn’t easy either. But Luciana, his wife, fixed it. We set a fixed day, I would write to him before if I could and go to his house. That’s how we were able to accelerate it,” he says about how he developed that biography in which Almeyda talked about everything. If he had always been transparent in his interviews, it would be even more so in that book in which he would tell about the life of a special footballer.

«My first idea was to do it about his career as a player. He had problems with the bullies in Italy, he was depressed, he argued with coaches and journalists, he didn’t like the falseness of the football environment… Doing it with short chapters with the different issues that a footballer goes through throughout his career,” says Diego, who did experience Almeyda’s first year on the bench very closely. «He went from player to coach in no time. It was a crash course in pressure. He never suffered again like he did at that moment. It was River in B, you had to be promoted no matter what. The people were very angry, the only thing they could understand was that River returned to First Division», he points out about Almeyda’s difficulties as a coach and that the coach himself has established on some occasions as a parallel to what he is experiencing in Nervión, with a team accustomed to winning in the last two decades and that is going through a complicated economic and sporting moment.

«It caught my attention that he was different from the rest. I told him to tell everything, that it wasn’t to get by, that I wanted something different. That he would write and pass it on to her, that the last word would be his. He told me about his depression, his problems with alcohol, the time he wanted to hit a journalist… He is very genuine, without filters.. As a player, he renounced the football environment, which is why he retired young. But then he realized that he needed it and decided to return,” highlights Diego, who focused on those mental problems that are now no longer taboo in football. «That fragility of the footballer. He was a friend of Maradona. “It’s very sentimental,” he adds about Almeyda, who lived with the Argentine star during those years of retirement in which he played Showbol all over the world. «The older girl had problems at school: she was nervous and distracted. They called us and gave him a psychodiagnosis. They asked him to identify each member of the family with an animal. I was an old lion, who was always sad and down. That killed me. For a son to see you like that is tremendous. I thought about the damage I was doing to them and from there I got the strength to go to therapy. They medicated me with antidepressants and anxiolytics, and I began to get out of the hole from which I thought I would never get out,” Almeyda told Borinsky about how he got out of that situation that had kept him away from football.

The anecdotes of Seville

Borinsky was not surprised that Almeyda accepted Sevilla’s challenge. “I wanted to train in Spain and I had been there as a player,” says the biographer, who remembers an anecdote that the coach himself told him about his first days in the capital of Seville. «He came from winning the Libertadores and having played well in the Atlanta Games, even against Spain he stood out with a great play and a shot against the crossbar, it seemed like Maradona. On the day of the signing, Real Madrid and Sevilla were each in a room of the Monumental leadership. They paid River the same. The president said to him: ‘Are you sure what you are doing? But he had given the word to Sevilla and he kept it. That paints what he is. That season Madrid was champion and Sevilla was relegated,” says the journalist, who also tells another anecdote about the Argentine’s presentation: “He arrived without cleats and they lent him some extra ones, which were two sizes too big. He started playing little games with the ball and ended up throwing it into the tray above. “He was rustic,” he points out about that first day, which Almeyda himself told him in a way that already showed what would happen to him later in Nervión. «There were 12 thousand people, they believed that they had brought a Maradona or a scorerfor that play against Spain. At that moment I understood that it was not going to be what they were looking for. After the fourth game, they bitched me with those 12 thousand plus another 12 thousand plus another 12 thousand…», the now Sevilla coach told him.

«He started with an experience that was going badly, it was going to be very hard. He loved River and he played it. It was a complicated championship in the second division, with teams like Rosario, Huracán, and Gimnasia, accustomed to being in the First Division. Furthermore, everyone wanted to beat River. He ended up becoming champion, the first two went up directly, but the third and fourth were in for a promotion. He put on his chest, got up at 3 in the morning, took pills… He cut his teeth forever and that’s why I was happy with how his career went later,” says Borinsky.who even asks for recognition for Almeyda: «I would love for him to return to the Monumental and get a plaque. He promoted him through tears, but then he was marked as a Pasarella man – the president who placed him as a coach. After being promoted he decided to do without Cavenaghi and Chori, who were idols of the people. He didn’t finish that championship, they fired him and he never returned to River again. He deserves to come back and receive the applause of the people. “He risked it for River, it was either promotion or promotion, there was no alternative.”