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I hadn’t seen Abdón Echanique since before the pandemic. He was one of four friends who often went to Flushing Meadows Park (New York) on Saturday afternoons in the summer to meet with the former Guayaquil athlete Galada, led by the famous Gallo. Jorah Dad Solis, one of the forgers of the idolatry of the Barcelona sports club.
I say, we are a quartet: Abdon, Walter Cárdenas (a great midfielder who has remained in the history of bullfighting since he cancelled that night the famous Estudiantes de La Plata striker Juan Ramón) Witch Verón, protagonist of La Hazaña de La Plata), Winston Andraca and this columnist. Everything is in the past, since Walter left early, because the pandemic and the temporary or permanent absence finally disbanded this wonderful team.
Today, there are only a few of us left and we no longer meet, but the two trees that sheltered us behind venue 5 (Feliciano’s) seem to await the bustle, the jokes, the memories, the laughter, the songs of Jorge Guerra that reappear (+), the delicious fish packs and ceviches of Lucho Muñoz or Jaime Cepeda, Lucho Barrios (+) and Lucho Guerra (+).
By a lucky coincidence, the three survivors of the quartet met again in the old house. Rocco Winston and his wife, Mrs. Yolanda, in North Bergen. A long talk the other day about pure football, with reminiscences. We remember the times when Buenos Aires football was the first power in the country. It had teams like Barcelona, Emelec, Everest, Patria, 9 de Octubre, and the last three teams disappeared or wandered anonymously in the lower series, with no one paying attention or considering them.
“These teams had a first-rate Guayaquil player base, from the youth teams, the community, the rookie league, the inter-school league, the reserve team, the federal championship, the state championship. Today, none of that exists. Everything is gone, so we don’t have to wonder why our football is dead. The reason is right there: the source of values is dead, including the Guayas Sports Federation,” Abdon told us with a hint of despair.
Our friend, a star of Barcelona and other clubs in the country, knows what he is talking about. Because he was born in a family very fond of sports, which was common in the old days of Guayaquil. His father, Enrique Echanique, was a baseball and football star. In the great days of Reid Park, he was part of the super champion Reid club, whose victories were based on a battery formed by Hector Ballesteros and Marcos Aviles, while the best shone at high altitudes. Infield Small-ball history: Vicente Maldonado on first, Jose Banjon on second, Enrique Echanic on third, and Manuel Leon on short base.
But the great baseball player was also a goalie and played with Jorge at the Reed Club Mojo Rodriguez – who later moved to Barcelona – and Luiz Payton Alvarado, Miragriños Manuel Andrade and Segundo Vitri, Orlando Zambrano, Hector Macias, Pedro Mata Pina, Gerardo Viintimira, Marcial Astudillo, Elias Toumbaco and Carlos Rivas. His uncle is the famous Tigre Echanique is a very famous outboard rider and another late sport.
Abdon was huge in adolescence, and they took him to play basketball in the old Huancavilca gymnasium, which they demolished one day to build a building owned by Fede Guayas, and which now presents a depressing state of abandonment, which is not new. Barcelona signed him when he was very young, but he loved football. In his neighborhood there was a team founded by the Consuegra family of Turin. They encouraged him to play Back Juan Diaz Salem League center.
There, the maestros Ramón Unamuno and Felipe Vera saw him and tempted him to join the Canarian club. “I am a league for Barcelona,” Abdon replied. Without further ado, they included him in the eleven bullfighters who played in Fedeguayás and played for Guayaquil in the intercontinental tournament. He started with the second team and was promoted to the first team at the age of 18. In 1960, Barcelona stopped playing in the federation and the players of the team joined the reserve team of the Azoguayás tournament,
In 1962, when Abdon was still in military service, José María Mariscal Ocampo, the Paraguayan coach who formed the Mariscal Sucre team (the predecessor of the national team), wanted to include him in his ranks, but Ekanek told him that his pass came from Barcelona. In “Idol del Astillero”, he was ranked fourth Back He participated in the national preliminaries of the 1965 qualifiers, along with Vicente Lecaro, Luciano Macías, Alfonso Quijano, and Brazilians Jair and Miguel Bustamante.
Out of curiosity, Echanique tells us that in the 60s he played nationally for Barcelona, but in the local championship they hired him in Quito and no one talked about passing. “I played for several seasons in Ocas and I was the best, so much so that the AFNA awarded me the Gem Rivadeneira Prize for the best footballer of the 1965 tournament, beating Patricio Echeverria from America and Enrique Portilla from the Quito league”.
Adon always returned to his beloved team, Barcelona. The unforgettable Vicente Lecarro, the best central defender in the history of our football, formed a wall in the two international matches he remembers most: against Dynamo Moscow and the Czechoslovak national team.
Our character misses the old days of Guayaquil football: “Above all, we loved to play and, of course, to win. For me, wearing the Barcelona shirt was the greatest emotion of my life. I was shaking in the locker room when I realized that I was going to jump on the grass, next to great teammates like Pablo Ansaldo, Elinho, Lecarro, Quijano, captain Macias, Felix Lazo, Huacho Muñoz, Gerardo Reynoso, Victor Perras, our dear friend Walter Cárdenas. We felt in our hearts the commitment to give the last drop of sweat, dedication and effort to win.”
He added: “If we had lost, we would have been ashamed. When I made my Barcelona debut as a starter, I remembered everything I had dreamed of since Professor Gradim summoned me for my first training session. I still didn’t earn a penny; no one paid me bonuses or knew what it was. I had to ask my dad for a few cents to pay for the bus fare and one time I had to walk from Garcia Moreno and Leta Mendy’s house to Reid Park for training. “That’s how we enjoyed the passion of playing football.”
Abdón Echanique continues: “Today all of them are dead. Today players earn a lot of money, but few have a moral identity with the currency that pays them. Journalism doesn’t demand much from them either. I listen to very few programs today. Sometimes I turn on the radio and all I hear are arguments, insults, whorehouse language. I turn it off immediately because I come from another era when after the games we went to listen to Ricardo Chacón, Aristides Castro, Miguel Roque Salcedo, Guillermo Valencia. Mauro Velásquez was knowledgeable and well-educated. Times have changed, but things have gotten worse.” (profound)
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