Robert Carmona, the oldest footballer in the world, challenges the 55-year-old Japanese who inspired Oliver Atom of Supercampeones

Even that of the footballer with the most years of activity is a myth that feeds on its own harvest. He was a botja who at the age of 9 was left without a father and immediately felt the weight of his absence. Roberto Carmona He understood how things would go and has been making a living from football ever since. At first she went out into the street to play corners and bring some coins to the house where she lived with her mother and sister. Subsequently he became a footballer.

With the average age of the players, He was a footballer who preferred weekly payments in the leagues of non-competitive countries.. Subsequently, he was associated with a record that he was used to breaking every year, that of the oldest active footballer. Younger or older, football was and is the way to earn a living. His journey could inspire a film or book, and both are in development.

Carmona is the oldest active footballer in the world, It is a shame that, despite Kazuyoshi Miura, the Japanese enjoy this recognition, even though he is five years younger than the Uruguayan. Asian has more posters, inspired a fantasy character –Oliver Atomfrom the animated strip Super champions-, while the South American must shine with its own lights.

“With a career spanning fifty years, (Miura) is the oldest active professional footballer in the world,” FIFA says of the Japanese in an article dated early 2023 on its portal. In another article he also talks about the Uruguayan. “The paucity of official details means that Robert Carmona’s name remains lost to the world today,” he says, as if to justify the preference.

If Miura has the ease to establish himself as the oldest, Carmona expands the myth he began to build in the 70s – one before the advent of Japan – as a football observer. He played in the United States when he had nothing to do with the MLS that Lionel Messi animates today. Penalty championships, in teams that have changed owners and names. Always in categories far from the elite.

“He is an important player, with a truly transcendent career, he has played in important teams in the world, something that I have not been able to do and he must have better conditions than me. I admire him, I respect him. I don’t know. “Don’t get angry, he is a collegue. I’d like to “Meet him: In 2018 I had the opportunity to face him and well, the deal didn’t work out. We were seeing if I could do some of my movies with him.”Carmona himself compares himself to Miura.

When he returns to Iraklis in Alicante, he will do so as a sports ambassador for an amateur football team from Punta del Este, Club LIFFA, which will use his image for the next four years. Unlike his debut as a footballer in 1976, his image exploded after the first decade of the new millennium. His purchase is usually a magnet for the attraction of the media which, if they didn’t announce the inclusion of a player over 50 or 60, would not find attention. Behind Carmona’s vitality there is a marketing action, even if he doesn’t have the experience of the Japanese Miura, and there are always clubs interested in having him.

“I have many opportunities because I make sure that every club I go to isn’t very well known, because it’s news: a 61-year-old man playing is news. So we need it for culture, sport, health, good life message for the elderly. That’s good because that’s what I basically preach.”Explain.

The difference between Miura and Carmona, or some of them, may have to do with the journey of each of them. The clubs they were and are part of. The Uruguayan lost count. There were more than 2,000 matches distributed between “47 or 48” clubs in Italy, Spain, Canada, United States, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Argentina – he played for Tristán Suárez –, Paraguay and, of course, Uruguay.

“Nobody will hire me to play in the second division, much less the first, because the system doesn’t allow it. But in the favorite leagues, in the Third Division, such as that of Alicante, Uruguay, Paraguay or the United States, there are possibilities. It should be noted that we are already at almost equal levels, because he plays in the same league as me. Last year he didn’t play, he only played one game and I played eleven. “I am very active”challenges.

He would like to meet you. A Japanese media reported it a few years ago by publishing the desire to play a match and launching the challenge: a return trip to Japan and Uruguay. Hand, King Kazu It didn’t bite. 2023 had them both on the same continent. In Carmona in Spain and Miura in Portugal, one train away. The Uruguayan’s envoys found the Asian’s managers and handled the challenge, but they did not accept.

“I would like it to be a football challenge, but with a social, educational and cultural purpose. Since he is also a person who collaborates a lot in his country, he also has a foundation. I wouldn’t do it to prove who’s better or anything: each to their own. I’m the oldest player in the world, he’s also a long-lived player and, well, if he’s better at football, so be it. No problem, it doesn’t happen there, it means having the opportunity to get to know each other and leave something for the world, for the lives of children, promoting sport. “It would be very nice if we appeared in the film together, but for me it is a spectacular pleasure.”it is hoped and expected that at the age of 62 – he will turn in April – the challenge will have a date.