Hugo Sánchez, the acrobat of the goal at which Lionel Messi has canceled all records

Although he no longer plays, the man is sitting at the tables and bars of the bars where they talk about football. He also walks the streets of Madrid, crosses the Puerta de Alcalá, walks along the Paseo de la Castellana even though he lives in another corner of the world, on another continent. His name is Hugo Sánchez and his name usually sounds like a memory for those corners accustomed to glory.

An anecdote serves to tell its dimension: in April eight years ago it made magic: that day when at the Santiago Bernabeu there was no talk of Cristiano Ronaldo or Karim Benzema; Nor has there been any controversy over whether Iker Casillas – then the retreating emblem – should be the owner or not. There, people counted different points of view on the same memory: Hugo Sánchez’s immense Chilean goal, against Logroñés, in Chamartín. 25 years have passed since the conquest without forgetting.

The Mexican he was like a superhero putting the impossible game together: with his back to the goal, he launched himself into the air with his right leg and, acrobatically, he kicked with his left. on the corner E to history.

In that same April he evoked the journalist Juanma Trueba that kind of artistic manifestation: “They say there were three minutes of applause and Hugo himself says that the referee, Brito Arceo, thanked him ‘for having seen the best goal in the world.’ not to remind the Bernabéu’s analogous reaction ‘from Marsal’s goal against Athletic, in the Puskas derby or in an afternoon of Di Stéfano against Portugal’ The historic perfection of the shot seemed confirmed when someone recalled that Logroñés plays’ Mr. ( this is the name of the mascot of the La Rioja club.) They will understand that there are signs in front of which one can only kneel“.

In Madrid they know: that goal will last forever. In every memory, in those who have listened to the legend and repeats it, in those who will build their own mythical character.

Much more than that eternal goal

But Hugo was much more to Real Madrid than that eternal goal. He was a figure and a scorer in the two great rivals of the Spanish capital. He had debuted at UNAM and came from a then peripheral United States League, in which he averaged nearly one goal per game.

In 1981 he arrived at Atlético. He adapted early: already in the first season he scored 12 goals in 17 games. He remained at the Vicente Calderón until mid-1985. He left after scoring 82 goals in 152 games and winning a Copa del Rey.

The road was crossed: from Manzanares to the White House. to Real Madrid marked an era in its own way: with goals and titles. And also with memorable stunts in the festivities. His numbers seem like a fairy tale written by the Mexican: seven seasons, 208 goals in 283 games, nine titles (among them, five consecutive leagues)the highest award for scorers (Golden Boot in the 89/90 season).

Sánchez was a forward who invited to literature. Eduardo Galeano once told an anecdote that offers the dimension of the crack born in that immense Mexico City of so many contrasts. It happened to two Mexican journalists, Epi Ibarra and Hernán Vera. They wanted to arrive in Sarajevo to tell the horror of the Yugoslav war, in that 1992 of pain and dismemberment. A group of soldiers hostile stopped them and it looked like they would pay with their lives for their audacity. Hand. A magical detail happened …

Galeano wrote: “The detainees had the idea of ​​showing their passports. And the officer’s face lit up: ‘Mexico! – he shouted -. Hugo Sánchez!’ And he dropped the gun and hugged them. ” The Uruguayan writer himself defined him: “Hugo Sánchez, the Mexican key who opened those impossible roads, had achieved universal fame thanks to television, which showed the art of his goals and the somersaults with which he celebrated them. In the 1989/1990 season. , wearing the Real Madrid shirt, he punched the barriers 38 times. He was the greatest foreign scorer in the entire history of Spanish football. “. Of course, until the appearance of a certain Lionel Messi.

But then some fleas …

What Sánchez did in his best season, the one that preceded the 90 World Cup in Italy (in which he did not participate due to the disqualification that weighed on Mexico), It was pure magic and a record of other days: since 1947 the most goals have been from the Basque giant Telmo Zarra, emblem of Athletic Bilbao. Three seasons earlier, the great Hugo had joined him, but in multiple games.

He had wanted. And in this campaign he crushed those numbers: he did, on average, more than one goal per game (38 goals in 35 presentations). On that occasion he also carried out two other feats as an area man: He established himself as the top scorer in all of Europe together with Hristo Stoichkov (later with CSKA Sofia, in the Bulgarian championship) and won the Pichichi Trophy for the fifth time.

It seemed impossible to improve that sign. But one day a Portuguese appeared – also dressed in Real Madrid white – and overtook him: in the 10/11 season Cristiano Ronaldo scored 41 goals. His record lasted a whisker: a certain Lionel Messi had already got used to grabbing all the most important numbers in the football universe. He made 50 and 46 in the next two seasons. Place one and place three on the League History pedestal. Cristiano Ronaldo, another stubborn goalscorer, scored 48 goals in the 14/15 season.

And Messi, then, at the age of 26, took away another pride of the Mexican Sánchez: that of being the foreigner with the most goals in Spain’s top flight. Hugol, the striker who in his own way forced to add a letter to his name, had 233. Prior to his move to PSG, Messi had 474 league goals, with eight Pichichi included. And Cristiano Ronaldo, before moving to Juventus, had finished second with 311 goals and three top scorer titles.

Made in Mexico

The Mexican writer Juan Villoro knew Sánchez in detail. For having seen him from the stands and for having treated him outside the stadiums. Once, in the pages of the Madrid newspaper El País, he portrayed it: “I met Hugo talking about beds. The center forward shook his hands under the rapt gaze of a hotel employee. We went to the 2006 World Cup in Germany as commentators and the pentapychichi turned his installation into a small area problem: he spoke to the employee as if he were a referee. The curious thing is that the difficulty amused him. To occupy a position in the field means to assume a psychology. Hugo Sánchez appreciates that obstacles exist because it is the only way to overcome them. The sybaritic of plots finds an option for the epic in the most insignificant. Hugo ordered a sandwich on a baguette and sadly they brought him wholemeal bread. His eyes lit up: he was able to argue with more gestures than words, as if he were asking for a penalty“Hugo was one anxiety after another. On the pitch, where he shone. And outside, where he embraced controversy at every turn.

Sánchez was also important for the Mexican team, of course. The overall numbers qualify your contribution: 29 goals in 58 games; that is the guarantee of one point every two games. He also won titles: the Concacaf Cup, in 1977 and 1993.

The first cry was in its rigorous way: pure vertigo. Two weeks after coach José Antonio Roca’s debut against the United States, The golden child -as they called him- appeared as a starter against Haiti, for the Qualifiers, and scored his first goal, at 30 seconds.

That goal and his growing game allowed him to debut in Argentina 78, just before his 20th birthday. However, the World Cup couldn’t show the best version of crack in the area. In his eight games in three different editions he barely contributed with a goal (in the 2-1 against Belgium, at Azteca, in 1986), he missed a penalty and was even excluded during the United States 94 due to repeated discussions with the coach Miguel Mejía Barón. The story tells of a desire: at the most of the appointment his stunts were missing.