Video rebounds the legend of "El Trinche", the better man than Maradona

• Tomas "El Trinche" Carlovich died on May 8 after an attack in his town of Rosario.
• Author of an anonymous career in the 2nd Argentine division, Carlovich was however better than Maradona for all those who say he saw him play.
• A myth which owes a lot to the absence of videos retracing the exploits of "El Trinche", until an archivist from a small town near Cordoba does not get their hands on an invaluable archive.

And on the third day, resuscitated Tomas Carlovich at the same time as his legend died. The greatest footballer in history that no one has ever seen playing died at the age of 71, on May 8, after a trivial assault in Rosario, one of the most dangerous and glorious cities in the country. time. A city that has given Argentina, Bielsa, Valdano, Messi and the famous Tomas Carlovich, known as "El trinche". A former Croatian immigrant son whose exploits in the 1970s are whispered from generation to generation between Cordoba and Rosario in an utterly irrational devotion for a player who after all has only played four short games in the Argentine first division .

Hasta siempre Trinche Carlovich.
Nadie robó la pelota, hoy te han robado la vida.
Benditos los ojos que te vieron jugar.
Que la tierra te sea leve pic.twitter.com/Sljq58yz2C

"I am told that the best was a certain Carlovich"

"They say I am the best, but since I came here [He had just signed to Newell's Old Boys], everyone tells me that the best was a certain Calrovich, so I don't know anymore", will say Diego Armando Maradona, at the same time the father, the son, and the Holy Spirit in the albiceleste imagination. "Que Messi, or Messi, your lo viste at Carlovich?" »In original version updated in 2020.

Irrational and irrefutable. How to fight, in fact, against an idea that is based only on legend, since no image remained of the paso-doble of the artist, it seems the inventor of the doble cano, small bridge to go and on the way back to humiliate the bull a little more? Finally if, a fleeting image, two seconds stolen for eternity in a forgettable film for which the director needed a plan on a football match and went away by chance on the day of a Cordoba match Central.

Even the immense Informe Robinson had broken his teeth on the archives, in the program which unearthed the romantic figure of Carlovich from the old smoky bars of Rosario in 2015. The former player and journalist Michael Robinson died a few days before “ El Trinche ”in an unfortunate coincidence of existence, will never know that he has passed by an incredible nugget. Three days after the brutal death Carlovich, killed for his bicycle, Carlos Andrès Grecco, archivist from the small town of Monte Maiz, overturned the myth without thinking about it.

"His death was a trigger for me"

Five minutes of YouTube compilation unearthed from the old tapes of an uncle journalist. “I knew his story, I saw him play when I was little and I knew that by looking a little, there were images of him. His death was a trigger for me. Carlovich has become a legend over the years, even the greatest such as Menotti and Pekerman said that he had the elegance of Redondo and Riquelme. I had to give the world a little bit of his genius. ” The man who was stronger than Maradona did not appear there in his best light at 42 and wheelbarrows, in a regional final of the province of Cordoba. Two years after the end of a dissolved professional career, he came to lend a hand to the local trainer, an old friend.

In fact, there are a few classy gestures, including chest control to put the ball to sleep to damn a saint and a goal with a little lucky instinct. But there is above all the rest. The potrero of street magicians, those vacant lots that brought up the greatest talents in the South American history of the game, and this jersey that strangely resembles that of the Argentine selection, as a glimpse of what could have been and that was not. The mirage Carlovich carries his cohort of carefully maintained illusions and half-lies. One day, an arbitrator would have reversed his decision to expel him under pressure from the opposing public, who threatened a riot. Another, Pelé is said to have refused his signature at the New York Cosmos because he did not want another king to overshadow him. It is also said that Marcelo Bielsa traveled every Sunday for four years to attend performances of El Trinche in the 2nd or 3rd division with Cordoba Central.

There is an indisputable anecdote, however. Before the 1974 World Cup, the national selection came to play a friendly preparation match in Rosario against a team made up of the greatest talents in the region, including a certain Mario Kempes. Calrovich is the only 2nd division player summoned. His performance is enchanting, to the point that the Argentinian coach requests that the tall, lanky guy with a long nape of his neck be brought out, which is undermining the morale of troops a few weeks before the World Cup.

The unfinished demonstration facing the Albiceleste

The memory of the humiliation will last until 1976, when the great thinker Menotti, new architect of the Albiceleste, decides to give the Trinche a chance. And we return to mythology. Tomas Carlovich will never respond to the invitation. "He preferred a good part of fishing to a football match," smiles Menotti. "I didn't like fishing more than that, but I don't remember, so if Menotti says so, it's true," Carlovich writes in Informe Robinson. Despite everything, we swear to see his eyes plunge into the past to contemplate a life of regret. Not professional enough, too partying, the eternal story of the great hopes of football that got lost on the way? In the case of El Trinche, the string is probably a little big. "Things haven't been done, that's all," admits the latter, probably the most lucid about his shortcomings. But whatever, as long as we didn't have the images. So why, dear Carlos?

"I wanted his children to have pictures of him"

"I didn't do it to tone down his legend or anything, on the contrary. I found this video for his family. I wanted his children, his grandchildren to have images of him, happy, on a football field, that they had something left. When the virus is gone, I hope to be able to hand them over, with the others. " With the others ? "Yes, Carlovich had played ten games for Monte Maiz the year before, I know that the tapes are somewhere in my uncle's archives. I just need a little time to find them. ”

❤️ Carlovich tendrá su reconocimiento en Rosario: una de las calles que bordea el estadio de Central Córdoba llevará su nombre pic.twitter.com/Ou6n6eU9hI

Then the myth will be dented for good, except at home. "Being from Rosario is an exaggerated way of being Argentinian," says Jorge Valdano when he talks about Carlovich. Two months before his death, the Argentine football gypsy had met Maradona for the first time, who had brought him a Central Cordoba jersey for the blink of an eye with the following dedication: "Au Trinche, which was better than me." Then Carlovich had replied: "You are the tallest I have ever seen in my life, now I can leave alone".

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