The day Coppola played for Boca: the testimony of the protagonists of the “ghost” match that the series barely mentions

The name of Guglielmo Coppola has always resonated in the world of football and entertainment, but with the premiere of Coppolaa series as a biopic that tells the life of the next representative Diego Armando Maradona, was back on the agenda. History is armed with anecdotes that was accumulating Guillot throughout his life.

The series chronicled events such as the purchase of the Ferrari and how Coppola talked about it Maranello why Diego wanted it black or for the arrest of the representative possession of drugs, hidden in a vase. Although the narrative begins in 1986, shortly before the World Cup in Mexico won by the Argentine national team, it then takes a leap in time.

However, in a chapter explaining the beginnings of Guille At Boca, above, a photo of Coppola as a footballer is shown. The representative played for a few minutes the First of Boca in a game played Energetic. The Bragadense League was defined and a triangular match would be played between them Sportsman Bragado, Bragado steelworks AND Boca Juniors of that city.

He had already done the triangular one raised expectations of the local public, but the invitation of Mouth It made people even more excited, to the point that the fans were in the hotel where the club had been staying up to that point late night it’s the same Antonio Ubaldo Rattinteam coach, had to ask them to rest the players.

The team of The river bank played a friendly match with him Metallurgical. The match has been played October 12, 1980day on which Guille he was turning 32, the club told him they would leave it to him as a gift take a photo with the team I watch of a footballer.

Rattin He told Coppola to go to the substitutes’ bench, but that he would not change, that he would remain a footballer. He was winning the game 4 to 0 Mouth with targets Norberto Outes. From the bench Coppola was amazed by the atmosphere and the stadium Municipality of Bragado I was full.

In fiction, they use the photo they took Coppola together with the team as a stimulus for the representative to have the idea to convince the owner Wonderful wines Let him be Boca’s sponsor. In the series the name of the person with whom the representative met is not said, but it is assumed that he is Maurizio Schoolone of the owners.

After the fourth goal, the coach sent Coppola to warm up: “Rattin, who are you going to put? The bus driver?”remembered the protagonist in TyC Sports that the fans shouted when they saw him warming up. The representative entered 15 minutes left so that he could finish the match by substituting Outes. They had written it with the Paraguayan’s name Jorge Infran so I could play.

“On the first play I wanted to stop, he hit me in the leg and the ball went out. I wanted to go alone“Coppola laughs, but adds that he then made an action in which he found himself face to face with the goalkeeper, He finished with “three fingers” and hit the post.

The referee of that match was Juan Carlos Loustau and laughing they reminded him of it Clarion the moment he entered Coppola: “Someone noticed that he wasn’t a footballer, HE they suck everyone laughs Now that he was running, he went in to play and he looked like anything but a player”.

However, the judge was not surprised that the representative played because “that game was one Fuck you, a ghost party“And he adds that at that moment Boca couldn’t beat anyone, they were having a terrible championship and he commented that Rattín”it had already been played, He was not a very meticulous and disciplined technician, It was a damn Boca”.

The Xeneize, in the Metropolitan 1980, had been sixth, 12 points from the champion River Plate. For him The national team finished fifth and I couldn’t access the second phase. Coppola said that after that match Rattin said “that he was The last trip What did they do together why Armando I was going to throw him out” and I did.

“I went and came back on the bus with the players, on the way back they said ‘you Guillermo’ you are a player who eliminates the managerafter the missed goal You’ll have him cast Rattin‘, but we already knew they were going to kick him out,” Loustau says.

A first-person memory

Someone who has experienced the anecdote up close is Vicente Gatica, former mayor of Bragado and captain of the club faced by Coppola. “For us It was a game without consequences.“We had respect for Boca, their numbers and Rattin, but it was something irrelevant,” Gatica said Clarion.

He also acknowledges that they didn’t know Coppola had come in: “At the time we didn’t realize it was him, we found out later. Bragado was not given importance, but At the national level there was an uproar“and added: “It is not common for a representative to play in the team his players are in.”

“We are one chacarero football and that playing for a friend of ours is a completely common thing, so later it didn’t bother us to know that Coppola was playing, but it did it seemed strange to us Let’s let Boca do it,” explained the former team captain who would later be captain sample.

“The ball came to him in the crescent of the area, he was two meters ahead, he stopped it with his back to the goal, he turned and I told him “Guillermo continued, continued”he made three metres, he kicked as best he could and the ball hit the post, not even the goalkeeper moved, it was all a joke“, game time Loustauwho also believes that the Acería players should have known Coppola because the defenders didn’t even move.

After the match the former international referee said he spoke to him Guillot: “He told me “I missed my life’s goal Peaks“When will I be able to score a goal with Boca if I never play again?”, so I asked him how he managed to play and he told me this the players wanted me to play”.

Gatica also recalled the only scoring opportunity Coppola had: “He made a play that hit him with three fingers and hit the post, If he scored the goal there it would be a scandal“However, after the match, Gatica never saw Coppola again until he passed him at the traffic lights on a street in the City of Buenos Aires.

“I was walking with my daughters, I saw him and said hellothen I told him that I had confronted him and I think he didn’t listen to me because he had already moved on with the car”, says the former mayor of the city of Buenos Aires. Gatica watched the series Coppola and said he would have liked that game to be in the series.

Coppola made the inferiors racingbut it didn’t arrive because Alfio ‘Coco Basile She told him that she had no conditions, otherwise “it would have been someone else”, because he “always” wanted it play football. Even though he didn’t realize his dream of becoming a professional, he had the pleasure of defending the one of the biggest clubs in the country.