Football has lost an elegant man. To a crack. To a playboy who could very well have been a Hollywood star. Football has lost an example of how football should be played. Federico Sacchi died, at the age of 87, in his native Rosario. “I never enter the court thinking about winning or losing, I went in to play well. And if we win, even better,” that blond, tall, light-eyed man once said. If we were to use the language of his time as a footballer, it should be said that he was “a great guy.” Because of the print. For the game. How did Sacchi play? Imagine Brad Pitt coming out of the backfield, with the ball under his sole and a panoramic look.
Like everyone, it began in the pasture when the Argentina of the humid pampas was just an immense plain and the industrialization of the country was in an embryonic state. Virgin land, pastures everywhere. He arrived at Tiro Federal as 5 and they became 6, a position he never abandoned. The service record is simple. From Tiro he went to Newell's, the team of his soul, where he played between 1958 and 1960. The following year he bought Racing and was part of the 1961 championship team. He spent three years at La Academia. During that period he was a starter for the Argentine National Team that played in the 1962 World Cup in Chile, led by Juan Carlos Lorenzo who put him as a double five next to Antonio Rattin. An advance on Toto, although the formula did not work.
In 1965, Alberto J. Armando put in a million dollars to take him from Avellaneda to La Boca with César Luis Menotti. The two people from Rosario, one a Newell's fan and the other a Central fan, were friends and lavished mutual admiration on each other. Boca, in addition to the money, gave Juan Carlos Rulli, Juan José 'Yaya' Rodríguez and Benicio Ferreyra. The first two were key in what would become José's Team. Federico played for a year dressed in blue gold until a ligament injury took away his chances. From there he went to Peru to play in 1967 for Sporting Cristal and the following year he closed his campaign at Porvenir Miraflores.
There is a fact for new generations to understand the magnitude of the importance that Sacchi had. The AFA Hall of Fame only includes 24 players. One of them is Sacchi.
"Federico was a phenomenon. I looked at him, I raised my hand asking for the ball and he, with clockwork precision, sent it straight to my chest, slow, soft, in a low flight. So slow and precise that when it arrived I had time to read what he said. It said printed: Argentine leather... hand-sewn... That was Federico as a player, but also, a noble, upright guy, a great friend...", Rubén Sosa, the unforgettable Marquis, his partner in Racing, to Rosario journalist Néstor Giuria in a report published in El Grafico.
The repeated phrase “of galley and stick” to refer to players who stood out for their elegance can be traced for the first time in some chronicle that tried to define Sacchi's style. “I am happy when I am identified with the galley and stick but that was another football, slower, you could think better, or rather: think more. Today, since everything is in such a continuous movement, so fast, you can think less, you still have to be careful, because when I played, they told you that football was 'the same as before' and you didn't believe them..." he said. In an interview.
At Newell's where Sacchi appeared he shared a team with goalkeeper Tarnawski, Roberto Puppo and a young man named José Yudica. As a defense partner he had Anacleto Peano, with whom he went as a team to Racing. “In Racing I had the best moments of my career,” he recalled in another article in El Grafico, “and not because of the fact that I had become champions in '61. Those who went through Racing and knew Tita know that the climate was different in everything. , special. Peano and I lived in the Constitución Palace and we arrived an hour early to practice to shoot mates with her; Maybe we felt it more, because we were from the Interior, but Tita was also one of those who formed that winning team..."
In case it needs to be clarified, Sacchi was referring to Tita Mattiussi, 'the mother' of that Racing of the 60s. Negri: Anido and Messiah; Blanco, Peano and Sacchi; Corbatta, Pizutti, Mansilla, Sosa and Borges was the Academy's formation the day the player from Rosario debuted in a 3-2 against Argentinos in the Cilindro. Some time later, at his side, a very young Roberto Perfumo would make his debut. He had as coaches Saúl Ongaro, the interim Juan Carlos Verdeal, Rubén Bravo, Néstor Rossi, the interims of Norberto Anido and Juan Carlos Giménez, José Della Torre, all of them, except Pipo Rossi, of very blue and white lineage.
Although Sacchi insisted that his time at the club was “the happiest,” Racing began to decline after the 1961 title and hovered around relegation until Juan José Pizzuti appeared in 1965, just when Sacchi moved to Boca, and began to shape to the team that would win the Libertadores and the Intercontinental. The number 6 shirt had changed hands. First Roberto Perfumo started playing, then Tito took him on as a 2 and a player from Bahia who played as a 5 went down to the dugout: Alfio Basile.
There is a mythical match. The friendly played at the Ducó between Racing and Santos that the Brazilians won 4-2. “Football like the Gods,” Dante Panzeri titled those 90 minutes on a packed Huracán field. “It was a great game, the result was the least of it. I played with a tremendous toothache and, in a struggle, Pelé tore it out from me from an elbow. The man was dirty to play with, I don't know if with bad intentions or what. Of course, without the tooth, the pain went away and I felt a great relief..."
Loved by Racing fans, before moving to Boca he had had the recognition of the Xeneize fans. In the first round, Boca won 3-1 at the Bombonera but Sacchi left cheered by the locals. In the rematch, the man from Rosario took away Antonio Roma's seven-game undefeated record by converting the rebound that Tarzán had given when containing a penalty. These were more civilized times and visiting fans were allowed access. They applauded him again.
Sacchi said that his debut in Boca was against Independiente in the then Double Visera. “It was in that famous match in which Roque Avallay fell into the pit after making a pass to Mario Rodríguez, which was a goal. In that Boca there was Rojitas, spectacular, it seemed that he did not move, but he barely threatened, the rivals passed him by,” Sacchi recalled a long time later.
A few years ago he was honored by Newell's and was named an illustrious citizen of Rosario. He said that he didn't go to the field, that he was bored, that “all games are the same, there is a lot of running and little playing,” he said then. But he liked to watch Premier League matches on television.
More than ten years ago they asked him about Lionel Messi. “I am so happy about what is happening to him because on top of that he is a very simple, humble guy, very shy.” He once said that his models in the position were Juan Barraza, from Independiente, and José Nazionale, from Lanús and the famous “middle line” that he formed with Daponte and Guidi.
“Adolfo Pedernera,” he said when asked about the coach from whom he had learned the most or the one who had taught him the most. It was obvious when he talked about the great players he had seen: “Pelé, Cruyff, the Spanish Luis Suárez... but, for me, the best was Alfredo Di Stéfano.”
Sacchi has died. A part of the history of Argentine football is gone. The one who played galley and cane.
