Rodrigo Palacio trains at the Dow Center, Pepe Sánchez’s training center in Bahia.
Rodrigo Palacio hung up his boots and grabbed the orange ball. Born in Bahía Blanca, the capital of Argentine basketball, he decided to go back to his roots and devote himself to his first passion. The former Mouth He changed the green grass for the parquet and the football goal for a hoop that hangs over 3.05 meters attached to a board.
The 40-year-old former striker, remembered for his particular braid that many guys emulated in their hair, decided to sign for the GarignanoMilanese club that currently plays the fourth division of Italian basketball.
He has already made his debut in a pre-season tournament, played his first few minutes on the pitch and surprised many with his performance. Of course, there is no lack of physical condition or even the technique to score.
The Argentine converts 4 points before him Trash Trezzano at the debut and, in the second game, he resumed working well with his wrist and scored 14 points in view of Malaspina.
Both matches were defeated for the new Palacio team, where they wear the number 4. However, the official competition in the D series starts this weekend and the Argentine shooting guard was seen free and confident.
Garegnano, the new club of the Palazzo
The Polisportiva Garegnano Amateur Sports Association was founded in 1976 with the main objective of promoting culture and sport for children and adolescents in the Milanese district. Several disciplines can be practiced in the club, for example basketball, gymnastics, judo, karate, tai chi chuan, yoga and volleyball, among others.
The main focus is on providing support to neighbors through sport and building bonds in the community. The club saw life just over 40 years ago and recently they got the municipal concession for a sports center where they managed to settle for more comfort.
That Rodrigo Palace has chosen the sport of parquet after his great football career is not a surprise. The Argentine was born in Bahía Blanca, the National Capital of Basketball (law 27,380). That port city pleased the players Manu Ginobili, Pepper Sanchez, Alessandro Montecchia Y hot dog Jason Y Juan Alberto Espil, among many others.
His love of basketball
As expected, Rodrigo also grabbed the orange from a very young age. played by armed guard in the club Skirt, wearing red and white with ease. With that jersey he made all the lower categories and also played seven games with the top team of the second division between 1997 and 1998. His best figures were playing in the cadets, where he was one of the best scorers on his team.
Robert Seibane He is 72 years old and is a collaborator of statistics and history of the Bahiense Basketball Association. In dialogue with Clarione he confesses that the world runner-up could easily have dedicated himself to basketball because “he had the technical skills to do it”, but then he had to choose and “decided football”.
Roberto has seen many young people walk on the parquet who, from an early age, have felt the passion for the orange ball in a city that breathes basketball. However, he rarely imagined what they might become in the future. This man, who has been collaborating with the Association for more than 40 years, has seen Manu Ginobili and his two brothers in Bahiense del Norte and also saw Rodrigo Palace with the number 7 on the chest in the youth categories of Skirt.
“Rodrigo must have started playing as premini or mini because he has been hired since he was 7, but the numerical records I have are from pre-childhood (u13),” he says. He calmly reviews a sheet that contains all the statistics of the former Boca during his six years of childhood in La Falda and confesses without hesitation: “From what I can see, he made a very good three-point shot“.
Roberto saw him score his first points for Garegnano in an Italian Serie D pre-season tournament and smiles as he recalls the video. He immediately returns to the numbers of the past and highlights: “In juniors he had an average of 15 points per game. And in the cadets he played 2 years, in his first year he made 33 triples and 134 doubles and in the second 35 triples and doubles. of 260. Those are good numbers overall.
However, he explains that “La Falda has always been a second division team. It was in the first division only once, in 1991, it went up that year and the following year it went down. It’s a neighborhood team but it had the basketball for many years. ”
Rodrigo Palacio has long practiced both sports at the same time. When he was in the training categories of Bella Vista, his former coach Ernesto Ancán confessed that he “finished playing basketball and came to coach football” and that “he arrived tired but played anyway due to the conditions that had”.
Finally, Bahiense chose to wear boots and had a prolific career that ended this Monday. After playing two World Cups with the Argentina national team and playing for clubs like Boca and Inter, Rodrigo Palacio said goodbye to a sport in which he shone.
His football career
The Jewel He had a long career as a football player which began in Nice view of Bahía Blanca and continued The hurricane of three creekswhere he was one of the key pieces for the team to reach the First Division in early 2000.
With her braid in the wind – her trademark copied by thousands of guys – she jumped banfieldwhere it was headed from Giulio Falconi and immediately attracted attention for his speed and resolution: he was one of the architects of the first qualification for an international cup in the history of Drill– and was bought by Boca Juniors.
There he quickly became the heir of Guillermo Barros Schelotto – in fact, he relegated him to the bench – and scored 82 goals to enter the top 15 of the top scorers with gold and blue. He has also won eight titles – three local and five international tournaments, including the 2007 Libertadores, the last great joy of the Xeneize-.
In 2009 he went to Italy to join Genoa, where he played for three seasons. From there he jumped to the almighty Inter Milan in which he played five seasons. Later he ended up in Bologna where he became a symbol and finally arrived in Brescia, where he ended his great career in Serie B of football.
Palacio also played a Copa América (Venezuela 2007) and two World Cups. He was in Germany 2006 under the orders of José Pekerman and had a rematch in Brazil 2014, with Alejandro Sabella as the coach. In that tournament he was a regular replacement and entered the final with Germany.
He had a very clear possibility of breaking zero to zero, but above all he defined the humanity of that unbeatable day of Manuel Neuer. From that failed Maracana game the phrase became popular “It was below, Palazzo”which has become a cruel stigma that has little to do with a brilliant career.
It is that the Jewel has left excellent memories in every club that has passed, with important contributions (746 games with 246 goals) as well as his passage to the national team, where he played 27 games with three shouts.
Gaston Sanchez
Source: Clarin
