Marco Ruben has scored 104 goals in 261 games in his three cycles at Rosario Central. (Photo: Juan Jose Garcia)
He chose to announce it on Wednesday afternoon, when the attention of a large part of the football universe was fixed 10,000 kilometers away, at the Santiago Bernabéu, where Real Madrid completed its comeback against Manchester City to access the Champions finals. League. Perhaps that’s why it didn’t have the effect it deserved. As goals from Rodrygo and Karim Benzema rained down on the Spanish capital, Marco Ruben said goodbye to the ball, a man who certainly made the goal as his monument.
He chose to say goodbye this Saturday against Estudiantes in Rosario, 20 kilometers from his native Captain Bermúdez, and do so with the Central shirt, where he has scored more goals than anyone since Rosario teams participated in tournaments that organized by the Argentine Football Association and with whom he lived the most beautiful moments of a wonderful career that closes in just 35 years. “I feel full physically and I want people to see me the way I want on Saturday: trying to give everything so the team can have a good game”he explained at the press conference he gave to the Arroyo Seco property, along with all his colleagues.
Believers in this part of the world are sure that God is everywhere, but he is present in Buenos Aires. Perhaps that’s why the retirement of one of this century’s most prolific scorers in vernacular football doesn’t affect what it deserves. Because Ruben lived for only 12 months in that 203 -square -mile[203 sq km]territory surrounded by the Río de la Plata, General Paz and Riachuelo. His brightest and brightest years were spent in Argentine Chicago.
Rogue fanatic by family design (“My father injected this madness called Central into my veins”, he told a press conference on Wednesday), arrived at the club of his loves in early 2003, at the age of sixth division, and very quickly climbed into the First Division after playing 33 games and scoring 19 goals in between of the lower divisions and the Reserve (as reconstructed by journalist Carlos Durhand in the newspaper La Capital): on Wednesday, August 25, 2004, Ángel Tulio Zof, who on that day began his eighth cycle as coach of Central, made his debut in a 0- 0 draw with Quilmes as a guest for the third date of the Opening Tournament. Ruben, who came in 19 minutes into the second half for Pablo Vitti, was 17 years old and 304 days old.
Source: Clarin
