The driver of the bus who brought the national team speaks exclusively: “At a certain point I lost all sense of where I was”

Claudio Zabala He is 56 years old and has been a long-distance bus driver for more than 30 years. However, Tuesday 20 December was not another day. He made a journey that will remain etched in his memory forever. “The first meeting with them was around 3 in the morning when they arrived from the airport“, he says in dialogue with clarion.

That morning Zabala had to go to the AFA property to make himself available to the Argentine national team, which arrived in the country after being crowned champion of the Qatar World Cup.

“From there we loaded them in Ezeiza and went to the AFA headquarters. The players spent the night there and well, at half past eleven we left the AFA and we started the tour of the Ricchieri highway”.

It was a day of celebration. The micro double deck of the Argentina national team brought the 26 world champions to the top. Messi, De Paul, Di María, Dibu Martínez and company celebrated and received the popular clamor as the caravan advanced at a crawl.

Crowds poured into the streets to greet them. But the tour could not be completed due to the 5 million souls who rushed to receive them. It all ended with controversy and the need for a detour to the Buenos Aires district of Lugano so that the players could return by helicopter to the AFA headquarters, after having made a quick tour of the center of Buenos Aires.

“I don’t know what the original idea of ​​the tour wasbecause I’m following the motorcycle caravan and the truth is that they didn’t tell me where to go, I was following them”, says Claudio.

Zabala says that although he knew the area very well, he sometimes didn’t know where it was: “With so many people, at some point I started to lose track of where I was. I knew I was on the Ricchieri, that I had passed Ponte 12, but I lost a bit of a sense of location due to the amount of people. Even if I don’t see much from below, I happened to have no idea what was missing to get to General Paz”.

The number of people who took to the streets made it impossible to carry out what was planned: to celebrate at the Obelisk. “I followed the caravan that was in front of me. It was always the same, everywhere it is done like this. Follow whoever is leading you and go ahead”, the driver reiterates.

Speaking of the excesses, the excessive celebrations and the fans who jumped off a bridge to land on the national team bus, Claudio claims he never knew about it. “I was isolated in the booth, focused on my work, I didn’t have contact with the players or take pictures. I found out what had happened when I got home and saw the news,” he explained.

Furthermore, he claims that he was never afraid of the human tide that swirled around the vehicle: “No, I wasn’t afraid, because I’ve been working with long-distance buses for many years.​ and what was breathed yesterday was a festive atmosphere“.

It’s a two-story micro and Claudio has respected the privacy of the players. “I haven’t had contact with them, not even when they went up, I concentrated on my work as always”, he concludes.

Zabala knows this job “could have gone to someone else.” However, it was for him and despite the physical and mental exhaustion that the task entailed, he feels like a lucky boy.

“It was very emotional to see so many people in the streets celebrating the victory. The people, what moves football. I saw that our country was happy, as was I and as was the whole world, to have become champion after so many years ” .

The driver says he knows nothing of the back-and-forth that arose around the police operation and the internships between the AFA and the government, which ended up having the bus leave the highway to cancel the visit to the center of Buenos Aires. His job was to follow police orders.

And he adds: “The important thing is that we are world champions. Regardless of whether I took them or someone else took them, that remains in the background. The important thing is that we are world champions and we have to have fun.”