Jorge Carrascosa was an emblem of Argentine football. Undisputed player of the national team led by César Menotti and who would later win the 1978 World Cup. He He played as a left-back and was captain of the national team for the legitimacy that gave him the respect of his teammates and for the decision of the coach.

But one day he decided to retire from the national team. Twenty-four hours before giving the list, Menotti already knew about the refusal. but he called him. And the left side, the captain said what came out of him: “Not anymore, Cesare …”. The next day the 22 names for the World Cup in Argentina were announced. And Carrascosa wasn’t there. Incredibly, not even Diego Maradona. Also, at that point, Carrascosa had already been confined to Mar del Plata. He was silent, listening to his inner voice. He felt satisfied with his decision.

He was, therefore, the axis and the victim of a thousand unverifiable conjectures, plausible suppositions and more, of rumors without possible verification, of intentional lies …

Before that, Carrascosa was already on everyone’s lips for a playful detail: It was the hardest figurine on the 1976 Champions album. That figurine was (and is) so difficult that they’re still looking for it.as detailed in recent days by the Clarín journalist Guillermo Kellmer in his note: “In search of the difficult figure for a friend”.

It was not the will to play the mystery after the Carrascosa footballer. He has chosen to distance himself, without turning points. He has worked in the private sector (in the insurance sector) and with his family. He could occasionally be seen at club-related events for which he was a reference. For example, he accompanied Huracán in some presentations at the Book Fair. He chose calm. Being an anonymous person who greets others, no longer like the little figure that everyone is looking for,

Carrascosa, always prudent and inclined to pronounce only the best words of silence, During the pandemic he hardly left his home in Adrogué. His last public appearance took place in March: he went to the legislature of the city of Buenos Aires to accompany his friend Néstor Vicente, who in that act distinguished himself as an “exceptional personality in the field of human rights”.

“Wolf Carrascosa was a great player and he is a great person. Menotti chose him for a reason as captain of the national team who finished champion in 1978, until he decided to step down. Neither as a player, nor later, he stopped being very interested in what was happening in the world and in the country. A gentleman on and off the court. A great“Néstor Vicente tells Clarín about his encounter with that athlete who left indelible memories in Banfield, Rosario Central and Huracán.

It was not the will to play the mystery after the Carrascosa footballer. He chose to distance himself, without looking back. He worked in the private sector (in the insurance sector) and with his family. He could occasionally be seen at club-related events for which he was a reference. For example, he accompanied Huracán in some presentations at the Book Fair. He chose calm. Being an anonymous person who greets others, no longer like the little figure that everyone is looking for,

When his refusal to play the World Cup was born

On that March 24, 1976, while the latest dictatorship took its first step and undermined national institutions in one fell swoop, at the Slaski stadium in Chorzow, the national team led by César Menotti faced Poland, as part of a preparatory trip to the 1978 World Cup, and René Houseman gave him the victory with a goal and details of his audacity to the applause of the Polish. Argentina beat 2-1 (the first goal was Scotta) the Polish team that, in the previous World Cup, had played its best season in history, finishing third (after beating the reigning champions of Brazil). The Argentine victory, moreover, had left a fact to be framed: in that stadium inaugurated in 1953, Poland had never lost.

On that round, as always at the time, the captain was Jorge Carrascosa, the left-back who enjoyed himself in the 1973 hurricane tests observing and celebrating the magic of his admired Loco Houseman. But, at that point, the Wolf, that nickname that he did not define him, hardly amused him in the football world anymore. I was tired. He didn’t want to know anything about agreements, about referees who in exchange for money charged penalties, about the growing doping industry, about violence that already seemed daily … To make matters worse he had to listen to a barbarism born of ignorance: that he played for the national team because he was a friend of Menotti.

In that tour of Europe, the idea of ​​saying “enough” was already going through his head. Also, it was nothing new for the coach. The two talked in the intimacy of the campus. There Carrascosa suggested his willingness to leave the national team; Menotti asked him to review a decision that seemed to have been made.

The arrival of the military in power has also aroused concern in Carrascosa, always respected by his peers, always seen as a point of reference for his generosity and consistency.

Your explanations on “no”

Recalcitrant to interviews and media appearances, El Lobo – as they called him – rarely referred to that decision, that complex moment.

“We were always aware that nothing would happen to the family. The only contact I had was the telephone, but everyone’s desire was to return as soon as possible to be with their own … Peronism lacked time to put an end to his rule, but all the same One felt that something like this was preparing …“, he told the daily Página / 12. The context: the Selection was on tour on the fateful 24 March 1976.

“A military dictatorship is not necessary to leave football. There are many things that happen in this way of life that make you give up, lose your illusions. If I had had to play the World Cup in Spain while we were at war with England, I would have resigned too. Will there be a neighbor, a friend at war and will I play a World Cup? When a child asks you for something to eat, the plans are over. Can you eat a ham sandwich when a child is asking you to eat? And the world of football, where I was, wasn’t the best of all worlds. I started to feel bad in the middle. When I saw the theme of the incentive, of drugs. Can you celebrate something you won as a result? If a guy, on the other hand, beats you with talent, you have to accept it. But why do you always have to win? It happens to be in a society where you are worth what you earn and not what you really are. And outside of football the thing is the same, superficial …“, I explain in the now defunct magazine Mística, in an interview with Fabián Casas and Gonzalo Aziz.

In the same interview he added: “The world of football, which I was in, was not the best of all worlds. I started to feel bad when I saw the issue of incentives, of drugs. Do you think it’s nice to know that you will become champion because the referee will give you a penalty?

These testimonies happened a little over two decades ago. Silence was almost a constant in the captain who did not lift the cup. In this, too, he has become a difficult figure. The most difficult.