Unforgettable Soccer. Luciano Wernicke

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       AMNESTIES

      On October 19, 1996, the Millerntor stadium of FC Sankt Pauli von 1910 witnessed a unique event: Within only a few moments, a player was given a red card, left the field, had the red card rescinded, and returned to play. This extraordinary event happened as a result of referee Jürgen Aust’s confusion during the match between the host team and Sport-Club Freiburg of the Fußball-Bundesliga. In the second half, defender Dieter Frey (jersey number 2) committed a strong foul and was reprimanded by Aust. The referee immediately expelled Frey because, according to his notes, the defender had received a yellow in the first half. Exasperated because he did not remember receiving another card, the player ran to the locker room to get rid of his anger with a cold shower. When he was already under water, Frey was called by a trainer’s assistant, Volker Finke. One of the line judges had warned the referee that the player cautioned in the initial half had been Martin Spanring (jersey number 5) and not Frey, so Aust reversed the red and stopped play until the expelled player was reinstated. The defender quickly changed back into his uniform and returned to the field, but the amnesty did little to help their team: Freiburg lost 2 to 0.

      Another referee who reversed his decision was Juan Carlos Moreno in the match that, in December 1998, CA Ituzaingó and Defensores de Cambaceres played for the C Division of Argentina (fourth tier). Although, his change of mind was for a very different reason. Moreno called a penalty against visiting striker Luis Alberto Monteporzi, who erupted in anger and furiously criticized the decision with strong insults. The ref, harassed by the harshness of the player, put his hand in his pocket and, when extracting his red card, accidentally pulled out some bills that had been in his pocket. With a little help from the wind, the money blew all over the pitch, and the Cambaceres’ players (including Monteporzi himself), with great skill, quickly picked it up and returned it to Moreno. Touched by the noble gesture, the referee changed red for yellow. With their eleven men on the field, Defensores won 3-1.

      In 1952, before the Copa Libertadores de América and the European Champions Cup were established, a group of Venezuelan businessmen created a club tournament that had a lot of repercussion and a very pretentious name: the “Little World Cup.” This championship, which did not have a qualification system, was developed as a round-robin group with selected clubs from Europe and America, such as Real Madrid CF, FC Barcelona, AS Roma, Sport Lisboa e Benfica, CA River Plate, Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas, São Paulo FC, and Club de Regatas Vasco da Gama. The tournament lasted for eleven years, until 1963. That year, while the Cup was being played, a local guerrilla group called “Armed Forces of National Liberation” kidnapped none other than Real Madrid’s top star, Alfredo di Stéfano. The player remained in captivity for 72 hours and, although he was very well treated, and his life was never at risk, the episode scared the foreign teams, and they refused to return.

      The first edition of the “Little World Cup,” though, saw Di Stéfano as a great protagonist, although not as a member of “the whites” but of Millonarios FC of Colombia, his first team outside of Argentina. On July 27, 1952, Millonarios—which was dubbed “the Blue Ballet” due to the quality of their players and the color of their jerseys—faced, coincidentally, Real Madrid in the stadium of the local club, Universitario de Caracas. The match offered the public a fantastic show of great technical, albeit a little rough, play. One of those tough episodes was led by Di Stéfano and the Galician striker Manuel Fernández Fernández, known as “Pahiño.” The two players got into a fistfight in the middle of the field. (An interesting note: A year later, the Argentine would reach Real Madrid and would oust Pahiño who, without a place on the first team, would emigrate to Deportivo La Coruña.) The Venezuelan referee, Rubén Sainz, expelled the two fighters, but neither of them wanted to leave the field. Their refusal and the lack of red cards, which were not invented until a decade and a half later, led to a spirited discussion that lasted for 15 minutes until Sainz got fed up and ordered the match to continue with its 22 original protagonists. The duel ended 1-1 and, serendipitously, Millonarios’ goal was scored by Di Stéfano a few minutes after the indulgence of the referee.

      The third final of the 1967 Intercontinental Cup between Celtic FC of Scotland and Racing Club of Argentina (they had each won their respective home matches in the “home and away” series) was a slaughter. The playoff, played on November 4 at the Centenario Stadium in Montevideo, had more boxing and wrestling than soccer. The 22 players proved to know a remarkable repertoire of punches and kicks that they distributed wholeheartedly, making officiating the match very difficult for the Paraguayan referee Rodolfo Pérez Osorio. As indicated (impartially) by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo Deportivo, “Äthe match has been very rough, with frequent violent actions and aggressions.” The referee had extra work, since, in addition to having to deal with the language barrier that separated him from the Europeans, he had to red-card six players: Alfio Basile and Juan Carlos Rulli of the Argentine team, and Robert Lennox, John Hughes, James Johnstone, and Robert Auld of the Scottish side. However, the crucial match—won by Racing 1-0—ended with 17 men on the field. Why? Because Auld—a talented midfielder, hero of the European final played in Lisbon against FC Internazionale Milano of Italy—refused to leave the turf. Perez Osorio and the Celtic midfielder maintained a bitter “dialogue” that ended when the ref got tired and, because there were just mere seconds left and it seemed impossible to change the score, ordered the match to continue. With one more player, Racing controlled the play and won the first Intercontinental Cup for Argentine soccer. After the heated final, the officials of both squads showed very contradictory behavior: While Celtic fined each of their men 250 pounds for the embarrassing boxing display, the Racing players received a car per capita. For the triumph in the match, of course.