Hugo Orlando Gatti, The madman, He has died this Sunday in Buenos Aires at age 80. He raised two months admitted to a public hospital in the Argentine capital for a hip operation that was complicated and derived from pneumonia. His death is also that of a style. With his long mane, which was scored with a link, his skinny and heartbreaking body and a daring and often recklessly recklessly every appearance of El Loco was a show that gave joy to the stands. He had the record of matches played in the Argentine First Division, with 765, and of Cerminate Criminals, with 26, the most remembered who in 1977 diverted Vanderlei, of Cruzeiro, and who gave Boca Juniors his first Copa Libertadores. During his last years he settled in Spain, but used to return to Buenos Aires because, he said, he hated the cold and took refuge in the southern summer.
Gatti took solemnity to the archer’s post in an era where, at least in Argentina, the model to follow was that of Amadeo Carrizo, who was also his teacher. The madman played in Atlanta, River, Gymnastics and Fencing La Plata and Unión de Santa Fe, until he arrived in Boca and his career took off. With the yellow band he won the two -time championship in 1976, two liberators and an intercontinental cup against the Borussia Monchengladbach.
When he was already an idol without rivals in Boca, César Luis Menotti summoned him for the Argentine National Team shortly before World Cup in 1978. After a memorable victory in a friendly against the Soviet Union, Gatti won the nickname of El Lion de kyiv. To his misfortune, a knee injury left him out of the team that would later be world champion. His position was occupied by Osvaldo Pato Fillol, who dismissed him this Sunday with “an eternal hug from arc to arch” from his social networks.
Until always, dear Hugo. Today he left us a true great of the Argentine and South American arch.
Always in my heart and in that of the whole Fillol family.
A lot of strength to their children Lucas and Federico and the rest of their relatives.
Eternal hug from stick to stick, friend and colleague.— Ubaldo Fillol (@ubaldofillol)
Fillol, in River, and Gatti, in Boca, represented during the seventies and eighty two antagonistic ways of understanding football in Argentina. The first was serious, methodical and a complete athlete. The second was eccentric and unknown, wore muddy clothes and a provocateur on and off the court. His most remembered bravery was on October 31, 1980. In the previous one against Argentinos Juniors, he predicted that Maradona would never be a great star because he could not “contain his tendency to be a chubby.” Diego put four goals in that game and a closed matter.
Forty years later, the madman made his own again, this time from Madrid and Gatti enjoyed going against the countercurrent and as a panelist of the Chiringuito of jugones, Josep Pedrerol’s sports gathering, He defended his predilection by Cristiano Ronaldo. To complete his heresy towards the Argentine, he used to say that Messi had done little and nothing on the playing field. “He made more Maria than him,” he used to repeat, sure of the media impact of his opinions.
Gatti’s life is a wide list of anecdotes. He played two friendly matches as Boca striker, shouting “permission played by the teacher.” He did not hide that before stepping on the grass, he took “two glasses of wine” to maintain, he said, “the swing” and “lose the shit” he felt at the great events. When he took the ball under the three sticks, the stands were paralyzed waiting for some madness. He preferred to stop away from the arch and liked to be playing, a strategy often successful, but so risky that he led him to make serious mistakes. One of them cost him the race. On September 11, 1988, Boca played at home the first date against Deportivo Armenio. Gatti left the area to cut the striker, failed and the game ended 0-1. During the week, coach José Pastoriza told him that Navarro Montoya would take his place in the next game, against River Plate.
The madman was wrong to think that Pastoriza’s decision was just a punishment to his boldness: he never played. He was 44 years old and left Boca waiting in vain for the offer of a large team. He had to wait ten years, until 1988, for Boca to organize a farewell match in La Bombonera, the mythical stadium that had made him a legend.
