Claudio Rata Rodríguez, the crack of Boca who paired with Batistuta and today remembers how he was imprisoned and his days in jail

“Stop lying. Who will remember that you played in Boca? Nobody will welcome you at the Bombonera. I bet what you want”told Marco Antonio Etcheverry, the devila Claudio Leonardo Rodriguezthe Rat. The sequence took place in February 2001, a few moments before Oriente Petrolero’s visit Mouth for the first phase of the Libertadores Cup, with a 2-1 win for the locals. Ronald Raldes, Milton Coimbra, Antonio Vidal González, José Castillo and the rest of the Bolivian team laughed at the joke of the devil. “Someone must remember”he thought to himself Ratthe man born in Santiago del Estero who had a brilliant appearance in Boca in the early 90s.

Rodríguez was injured and was unable to play that night, but accompanied the substitutes on the bench. The teams took to the field; the candy box it was in his play of encouragement and chants. walked and walked the Rat and nothing happened. Until he heard a voice from above that was familiar to him. “Say hello, Rat. Are you zoomed in? You do not remember me anymore. Say hello, son of a … “was the cry that slipped into his ears. “I looked up and Diego was greeting me from his garage. I couldn’t believe it. I had met him in ’90, when he came to train at Boca because he was suspended in Italy. We stood for a while talking in the distance. I remember that the line judge came to tell me that the game was starting. Diego started singing: ‘Olé / olé / olé / Rata / Rata’ and everyone on the pitch followed him. I couldn’t believe it: I covered the mouth of the Devil and everyone. It was wonderful”tells Claudio Leonardo Rodríguez with a laugh Clarione.

But beware: Rat It cost him a lot to make his debut in Primera de Boca, a club he has been a fan of since birth. “An uncle came to see me the day I was born and said to my mother: ‘This is Rattín’, by Antonio Rattín. Everyone in Santiago knows me as Rattínright in Buenos Aires they started calling me Rat “invoice.

Claudio Rodríguez was born in Santiago del Estero on February 3, 1969, in the heart of the neighborhood on April 8, a few blocks from the Miter club field. It didn’t take him long to become a fan and start playing in the Lower Leagues, always as a right-wing midfielder. He made his First Division debut at the age of 15, in a duel in a Regional Tournament. He stood out and Newell’s invited him to Rosario. Jorge Griffa tested it against the first team of the Leprosy and it glowed. “But I couldn’t stay because Miter intervened and they couldn’t sign my pass”ensures.

At that time he also received a test in Boca. And he got news a couple of months later. “They knocked on the door of my house and they were two leaders of Boca. My old man, Pascual, was drinking friend and jumped up. They were Mario Malara and Mariano Palau. “Does Rattín live here?” they asked. “We came with orders to take him yes or yes to Boca,” they said. The next day I was on the plane to come to Buenos Aires “remember the Rat.

However, Rodríguez would be left with months of fatigue and anguish. “I lived in La Candela, I trained from Monday to Friday and on Saturday I couldn’t play because I didn’t have a pass. No one in Miter could sign him for surgery, first; and then from a president who wanted nothing to do with selling me “to remember.

Those were hard times for Rodríguez, to the point that it was nothing to throw in the towel. Especially when he was lured into military service. That’s how he tells it Rat: “It happened to me in the Navy and I had to show up in Santiago del Estero. There I thought that with a contact I would be able to solve the problem and go back to Boca, even if they took me directly to Bahía Blanca where I did the two months of education. My destination was Tierra del Fuego, but an acquaintance from Santiago has just arrived and they sent him to Tierra del Fuego and I to Buenos Aires, to the Libertad building ”.

-Do you start playing Boca?

-No. In Bahia they told me that when I showed up in Buenos Aires I had to say that I had a place to live because otherwise you would have stayed as an intern. I arrived, said I had a place to live and they released me until Monday. I sat in a square of the Retiro and didn’t know what the hell to do. It was then that I remembered that I had an aunt in San Miguel, whom we had once visited with my parents. I don’t know how I got there and found her; I stayed with her for three months. And one afternoon I went to see the boys play La Candela and they told me to stay longer.

-So you haven’t played Boca anymore?

-In those months of discharge from the Service, n. I left La Candela at 3 in the morning to be at the Libertad building at 6, I returned at 6 and trained alone. In the morning I climbed the 11 floors by stairs 5 times to do something. Then I managed – again through my old man, who took care of it – that the Navy authorized me to play because I no longer belonged to the Miter or anyone, but to the State. I entered a Fourth Division match against Estudiantes with one minute to go, grabbed the corner rebound and broke the arc with my right hand. That’s where it all started.

Did your colleagues and superiors know you were a Boca player?

-No. I didn’t want to say anything because there was a non-commissioned officer named Ledesma who knew my story, who was a River fan and who drove me crazy every time he saw me in the building. He made me “dance” at any moment. I thought everyone would do the same to me if I told them I was playing soccer. One afternoon Suboficial Carballo, who was my superior, was looking at the popular newspaper, where all the summaries of the Inferiores appeared. “Look what a coincidence -tells me-. Here at Cuarta de Boca there is a player with the same name and surname who scored a goal at the last minute. ‘. When I told him it was me, he couldn’t believe it.

– Did he make you “dance”?

-No, he was a Boca fan. He asked me what I needed. I told him on Tuesday to train. He gave them to me and he asked me to score more goals. I put two at Independiente that weekend. ‘What else do you need?’, I ask. Thursday. And so I was scoring goals until I reached the reserve. There he only went to Libertad on Mondays and then he trained every day. In the First Division I made my debut on a Sunday against Gimnasia, moreover I scored a goal, and the next day I was dismissed from the service. I arrived at the Libertad building and everyone threw me a party.

-Your first games in Boca were impressive …

-I had to play with him a lot cai Aimar and scoring goals. Diego Latorre was hitchhiking and Batistuta and I were ahead. But soon the Teacher Tabárez and I hardly ever played because he bet me.

– What was that story like?

-The day it took over Teacher, I was in Santiago because my mother had had an accident. When I got back, she called me to chat. ‘I didn’t know you were studying medicine’, he threw me I did not understand anything. ‘Why did you go to Santiago if you can’t do anything? He must have been sitting in a chair next to his mother’s bed. They need you here to earn money and provide solutions’, he told me. And from there I was marked.

-Was it from the group of Falcons or Doves?

-I came back from a loan in Chile and when I got to the locker room I was divided. The Arch Navarro Montoya grabbed me and told me I was one of their group. The porteños were on one side and the provincials on the other. They didn’t even talk to each other in the locker room, but on match days they played as if nothing had happened.

Did they fight at some point?

-No. The worst situation we live in with the bar. Grandpa was there then. 500 boys came to Hindu and the master Jorge Habegger was pushed and insulted to wear Blas Giunta.

Total, Claudio Rodríguez played 52 games in Boca, scored 8 goals and won the 1993 South American Gold Cup. Subsequently, his career took him through Universidad de Chile, Alvarado, San Martín de Tucumán, Atlético Tucumán, Nueva Chicago and Douglas Haig until his arrival in Bolivia in 2000. He has since lived in Santa Cruz de la Sierra. “Now I’m the coach of Deportivo Cooper, the promotion team. A couple of years ago we managed to bring Royal Pari to the Copa Libertadores. And when I’m not working in football, I help my wife, who has a delivery house. Her name is La Favorita and we make Santiago empanadas, with the recipe my mother gave us “To explain.

-Is it true that you got angry when you went to see the Madre de Ciudades stadium in Santiago?

-Partially yes. I think an injustice has been done to me. The stadium is fantastic and in a corridor there are photos of all the people from Santiago who have played in the First Division, except mine. There are also postcards of players from other sports. I was one of the first people from Santiago to play in Boca.

days in jail

Claudio Rodríguez’s life had its heaviest moment when in 2004 he was arrested on the border with Salta for alleged drug possession. He spent 20 months in prison. “They made me a bed to get money from me and it was declared; I spent more than 40,000 dollars on lawyers and newspapers “ensures.

-How was the arrest?

-I was going to Santiago by bus. When we show the documents at the border they tell me to wait. A few days ago they had confiscated a package in the name of a certain Claudio Rodríguez who had 6 kilos of cocaine. I was traveling with a backpack. The kidnapped suitcase would go to Tucumán. When they took my suitcase it was already open and with drugs in it; therefore the procedure was also wrong. The media revealed that I was traveling in a truck and that they had followed me for more than 300 kilometers. Crazy. I told them that my name was Claudio Leonardo Rodríguez and that the suitcase was in the name of Claudio Rodríguez. They sentenced me and sent me to the Villa La Rosa prison.

Why have you been in prison for so long?

-Because the judges and the Gendarmerie were wrong and did not want to expose themselves. There I went to talk to lawyers who took money from me all over the place. I don’t have much left. Until a detainee told me to ask for a lawyer and in a few months I was free from all guilt. They called the girl who had sent the package and she said I wasn’t Claudio Rodríguez, that the one with the suitcase was a big, gray-haired man.

Did you have a bad time in jail?

-No, we did football tournaments and shared a lot with the interns. But the time was long. My family was in Bolivia and my parents in Santiago. The worst was when the visits ended and I saw everyone walk away. Those moments were tough.

-You said they got you a lot of money there. How do you live now?

-I live well, with what is right and necessary. Almost all of my savings went there. I have a house in Santiago and also a 40-hectare field, which I would like to start working on in the coming months. The idea is to travel there during the strong months and continue with football in Bolivia, together with my wife Rosario and my children Claudio, Luciano and Florencia.