Someone wrote a message in the club's red, white and blue on a brick wall outside Parque Central a few years back. The whole thing is pretty rough but it is better for it. There is something meaningful about the simple message. I will come back to see you.
Y volvió pic.twitter.com/GSIt8GKBjb
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) August 1, 2022
The man did this week.
After leaving as a teenager to follow his girlfriend across the Atlantic, he has returned to the club where his career began. When he walked out he was 18. He's 35 years old.
The message that started as a request, one of those mad ideas that no one really thinks will happen, became a reality as he made his way to Parque Central. Sofi recorded the video of him leaving home and coming back with his wife and girlfriend.
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The impact was huge because Delfi, Benja and Lauti were with them. This type of thing is no longer happening. There were 20,000 tickets sold for the return of the kid who won the league after making his debut in May 2005. It was an "honour" to give up the No. 9 shirt, according to the man who gave it to him. Lionel Messi smiled and said "I know what it means for you to go home" A song from the band No Te Va A Gustar plays in the video along with footage from years ago. It said to come home when you want.
"I'm here because of you and I wanted to," he said. My kids wanted me to play for Nacional.
He had done that. That was the point this week. When he was seven years old, he and his family left Salto and moved to the neighborhood of La Comercial. He didn't know about it until a man walking a dog stopped to chat to his brother, who was also a footballer. His parents both worked in the bus station, his mother as a cleaner and his father as a janitor.
There was a path of gravel behind the house. It was called the callejon. There was a lemon tree at one side and a women's prison at the other. The children's home was encased in barbed wire. It wasn't always a great place to be, but it was a great place to be at night. Metal shutters were drawn down to provide goals. The painted posts did the job. The crash was a bit like now. It was fierce when he joined the club.
Paolo was six years old when he played and would go on to have a successful career in several countries. His younger brother also did. Luis claimed that Maxi was the better footballer despite not making it. Luis was a fan of the team that he supported.
His mother insisted that he go to the games with her, despite the fact that he would have to go to the other games as well. Even if they watched the wrong team for a while. The fan in the stands asked why he wasn't celebrating a goal. He was wearing socks that were revolting.
Both of them ended up in the youth system. It's possible that he didn't stay there for a long time. He admitted that he wasn't always the most dedicated, but Wilson Pires, who worked at the club, helped guide him. Warened him as well. And so did Paolo. Sofi was a kind of salvation. More so than he had anticipated.
When she was forced to leave with her family, everything changed because she was desperate to make it. It's as fast as possible. It took him 10 years to get to Barcelona, but he finally got there.
Home did the same thing. Bolso was his name. He was following them after watching Nacional. The person was identified with them. He supported them and played for them. There's a nice photo in which the original Pistolero is being paraded triumphantly around the pitch, and the kid on his shoulders is Luis Suarez.
pic.twitter.com/WxfYuP55YB
— Sid Lowe (@sidlowe) July 27, 2022
One of them was him.
It was not the only reason for the huge response to him coming back. It is also due to the fact that he became so large, someone to follow, to celebrate, to claim as their own. He missed a lot of chances when he was a member of the team. He was called a donkey, wooden-legged, but he went on to become a wildly successful player. He has scored a lot of goals. He is an absurd football player.
It can sometimes feel like he is not rated as high as he could be. Everyone knows that he is rated and there are good reasons for resistance, but that doesn't mean he isn't rated. It's striking that more is not made of what he did than what he was. It's outside of Uruguay. There is a question about where a brief stay made a big impact.
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In Spain, he won five LaLiga titles. It wasn't single handed, but if you want to know what fans think of it, ask them, they will tell you that it's not too far off the mark. He was on two different teams. He was the top scorer in Spain for 11 years and went back to Diego Forlan.
He scored 40 goals in the last fiscal year. Messi andRonaldo have scored more than anyone else. Two men scored more Barcelona goals than anyone else. He scored at least 20 goals in every competition for nine years. Did anyone else volley a ball like him? If the time was right, the manner of it wasn't, which fueled him, the end at Barcelona came with a short phone call.
He went to another place. On the last day of the first season, after scoring the goal that won the league, he cried on the phone with his family. The goals are stated in bold. They had 21 of them that year. When they decided he couldn't go on, there were as many as any other person. He will put the ball between them if they show him some posts. There was a banner at the Metropolitano that said thanks for making us champion.
His knees are the way they are at 35. There is a World Cup coming, something to aim for, a final shot after 15 years with the national team. There were also feelings of pride. Initially staying in Europe proves a point. There was a new idea that took shape. What do you think would happen? They advocated for it at Parque Central. Thousands of shirts were gone in the first day, but it was good for the economy and emotional well-being. He embraced it as well.
There were many reasons for that. There were talks about clubs in Mexico, Brazil and Turkey, but they didn't come to fruition. Sometimes agreements can't be reached economically or contractually. Issues in terms of upheaval were posed by some of the offers. Brazil brings a lot of time on the road. The season began in the U.S. The summer was moving on but there was no decision yet.
It was an attractive proposition, a six-month contract, trophies to challenge for in the short-term, the World Cup to prepare for, right there without having to fly a long way back for every get- together. The warmth and feeling of home was also present. There is a family. Let's ignore the money and do this. At first, it didn't seem believable. It still didn't feel believable to judge by the size of the crowd. The presentation feels special, almost implausible, and also feels preordained. The circle was always going to close.
As the video played clips of him from a long time ago, he stood on a stage in the middle of Parque Central and watched the screen. "Hey, Dad, I'm happy you're here where you wanted to be, where it all started when you were little," Delfi says in one video. He said that the time will come to return. There is a video of him at Melwood. It's older now. He said that he would like to return to Nacional one day.
He was here again that day.
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