Teo Gutiérrez denies Coco Basile and targets Racing fans: “It’s a very sensitive club, its people are very sensitive”

On April 14, 2012, for the tenth round of the Clausura tournament, Independent beat 4-1 racing in the Libertadores de América and abruptly ended the career of Alfio Basile as a coach. That day Coco decided not to direct anymore. And it wasn’t because of the heavy defeat in an important match like the Avellaneda classic, but for an issue that goes beyond football.

The story is known. Teófilo Gutiérrez, who had given the Academy the lead in the 26th minute of the first half, was childishly sent off for “verbal excess” against the referee Sergio Pezzotta in the 23rd minute of the second half, when his team was already losing 2-1, and in the locker room there he was He fought with Sebastián Saja. Then, he pulled a gun out of his bag.

A few days ago Basile told the complete anecdote. “I take him (Teo), with his teammates, and we tell him: ‘Don’t think about fighting because they look for you and throw you out, we have to win this match,’” he recalled in an interview with F90, an ESPN program. “When I got there I saw two of my players hit him, so he took his car out of his bag and pointed it at me. It was a big mess,” he added about the time of the accident. And he condemned: “From then on I started playing football.”

The Colombian’s response didn’t take long to arrive. “I cried a lot because what happened was an injustice. They found nothing. Where is (the gun)? There was nothing, otherwise they would have shown it,” the 38-year-old Real Cartagena striker told DSports.

In Racing the two versions of Teo Gutiérrez coexisted. On the one hand, that of a striker gifted with great technique and goals: that afternoon on the Independiente pitch he closed his first stage in Argentine football with an interesting average of 20 goals in 40 games played. On the other, its conflictual side. He was expelled four times and accumulated endless provocations.

“I was a goalscorer in Racing, but people are left with the last thing, with that episode. Two, three European teams came looking for me and I didn’t want to leave out of gratitude for what they had done”, analyzed the man who was then loaned to Lanús and Junior de Barranquilla before Cruz Azul bought his pass in December. from 2012.

“Racing was a very beautiful stage in my life. It opened doors for me in Argentina and in the world”, thanked the champion of the 2014 Copa Sudamericana and 2015 Libertadores with River. After the praise came the criticism: “It’s a very sensitive club, its people are very sensitive, they want titles. The quality of the players who arrive there and they can’t exploit them in every way…”.

“It’s a club to observe a lot, to learn a lot. What has always remained for me is my happiness, my joys, my goals in Racing, what people loved me and what I built with many friends”, he concluded .