The story of Ezequiel Centurión, the River goalkeeper who had Pato Fillol as godfather and who dreams of saving La Bombonera

“What are you doing here? Why aren’t you cutting corners in Buenos Aires?”. So said Ubaldo Matildo Fillol to a 15-year-old goalkeeper named Ezekiel Centurion. The sequence took place in October 2012, in the changing rooms of the Cipoletti Visera stadium. The Duck He had traveled to the Río Negro, invited by a local river fan club and the Patagonian Cast Football Subcommittee, and met an acquaintance while watching Inferiores games. It was Centurión, who had remained in a test at River in 2009. Fillol has not forgotten that goalkeeper. “The first time I didn’t dare to stay because I was too young.”, Explained the 25-year-old goalkeeper. And I add: “I have a lot of affection for Pato because he too gave me the approval to join the club in 2014 ”..

The history of Centurión, then, can be glimpsed: He stayed at the River in 2009 and was only encouraged to come to Buenos Aires in 2014. What happened in between? Unmatched work. The first advice on the arc was given to him by his father Rafael, former goalkeeper of Cipoletti and Atlético Tucumán, among others. In Cipo He has done almost all the lower leagues and, tired of waiting for his place in the Federal Tournament A, he emigrated on loan to Fernández Oro to add minutes in the Confluence championship. He played and gave up. He came back and held the pass in his possession.

There he had a new opportunity to prove himself to River. The year was 2014. After two weeks of rehearsals and behind the ok by Fillol, Centurión joined Sesto as the fourth goalkeeper. That year he only played a couple of games. “I tell the boys not to lose sleep. I didn’t come here because I was a genius or something, but because of the effort and because I left everything in training. If you do what you like and put a lot of claws into it, nothing is impossible “assured LM Cipoletti on the site.

But at the River Cipoleño’s goalkeeper also had to fight will be the owner of Monumental against the Central Barracks and that I could cut the candy box against Boca, if Franco Armani does not recover from the small tear in the left comb. He just went to work under Marcelo Gallardo’s orders in 2019; He was part of the delegation that went to Lima to play the Copa Libertadores final against Flamengo. He had to run from behind and in 2021 he decided to go on loan to Estudiantes de Buenos Aires.

Centurion knew that taking such a step did not mean turning back; he did it by going from Cipoletti to Fernández Oro. In the Pincha de Caseros he saved 32 games, scored 28 goals and kept the goal clean 14 times. When he was about to renew for another year, Gallardo called him on the phone and asked him to come back as a replacement for Armani. “The student thing was a very nice experience. It was a nice change, because River is very big and the downgrade would have been a change. But I was very involved and I knew I had to play well. It helped me a lot and I feel different in my goal “, stated on the Río Negro portal. And I add: “I try to be as simple as possible, not to do strange things. I think I do it in the normal way for what it means goalkeeper “.

In any case, this isn’t the first time Centurion has gained media coverage. In 2020, it made headlines for being the first positive case of Covid on the River campus. And not only that: he was inactive for 45 days because they detected inflammation of the myocardium, a frequent sequel in high-performance athletes.

After so much effort, Centurión managed to make his debut at the River on 9 May in a 2-1 win over Platense. Now he will play against the Beautiful his fifth game in Núñez’s team (he kept clean sheets three times). And he dreams, why not, to cut the candy box.