With two starting goalkeepers, Racing didn’t need Romero: not even his mistreatment

Marco Croce. Roger Dominguez. Augustine Mario Cejas. Luigi Carrizo. Ubaldo Matildo Fillol. Gustavo Campagnolo. Sebastian Saja. Gabriele Arias. Racing had great goalkeepers, men who made history under the three sticks. And also, to Sergio Romero.

It was there DuckPrecisely what gave him the first opportunity to get close to that goal with which he won the Super Cup in 1988. He added him from the Sixth Division to the professional squad. The missionary already showed conditions in the lower divisions. And in 2007, the year of his debut, he was a goalkeeper for the Under 20 national team. That year, with Hugo Tocalli -knowing the role- on the bench, he was junior world champion in Canada. And at the end of the season he was already in Holland. Louis Van Gaal kept an eye on him and signed for AZ Allmar.

Lowercase he only played 4 games in Racing 15 years ago: his baptism against Chicago (1 to 1) in February, two dates in April against Colón (1 to 1) and Belgrano (3 to 3) and the last in June, against Godoy Cruz (4 to 2). However, he has always had a connection with the club. After all, he was a kid out of his prey, beyond the fact that he had been caught on the Chubut Children’s Activities Commission while he was arguing between football and basketball.

In Racing they have always appreciated it. Perhaps it was because of his performance in the Argentine national team, where little can be discussed with Romero, apart from his performance in the final in Brazil, where he could not against Mario Götze. For connoisseurs of the location, I remove the corpse and the sight of the ball in the shot of the German who defined that duel at the Maracana. Before, he had become a hero: He was a figure against Holland on penalties.

Court 1 of the headquarters of Tita Mattiusi is called “Sergio Romero”. Yes, even though he barely played a handful of games, the leaders put him on a pedestal. Fans too. Y Lowercase he returned the wink. “Thanks to Racing today I am where I am, who plays abroad and in the national team and the feeling does not change. We came back here, to watch … every time I have the opportunity to be in Argentina I come to see the team “, he said in 2018, when he was still the goalkeeper of the national team, where he saved almost a hundred games (96) and embodied in the man of records.

Right there, in that complex that the fans built with their own strength in the darkest times and which today is a great training center in Avellaneda, Romero trained with his goalkeeper coach, Alejandro Santillán. And he gave a speech to kindergarten children. With racing clothing, of course. And he talked to them about the feeling of belonging. It was last week, when no one imagined he would sit down for lunch with Roman and sign with Boca. Much less, that he would have made such delicate statements to the people who kept him in their hearts for having considered him a son of the house.

The truth is that Racing didn’t need Romero. It has a national team goalkeeper, Arias, and another boy from the club – no longer very young, he is 26 – who showed firmness and personality when he had to take responsibility for the owner’s injury. And he did it so well, beyond some position errors, that he struggles hand in hand for the position. Boca catches a goalkeeper with a pot, but in the last decade they have saved 84 games. Today it is an unknown.

However, I didn’t need the Academy Romero’s shame. Because for the fan, even if he has ten members, his club is the biggest. His words hurt Avellaneda. More for those who said it than for reality. there was no need to stay that way Lowercase in the huge history of racing.