Our city has been the door through which all modern sports have entered since 1899 with the founding of Club Sport Guayaquil. The arrival of Manuel Seminario in 1907 gave sports in Guayaquil a huge boost. It was he who erased economic barriers by buying expensive imported equipment from his own pocket and donating it to the clubs he founded himself. The sport became popular with the participation of CS Guayaquil, the Employees Association, Patria, Libertador Bolívar (with the officers and crew of the ship of the same name), Vicente Rocafuerte (with students from the campus), Nacional, Unión, Santiago and others.

‘Leakage’ and ‘theft’ of talent: ‘Once upon a time’ when it was impossible to do it to Barcelona SC and Emelec

The city’s sports fields – rustic little fields laid out by the athletes themselves in the old hippodrome opened in the Astillero district in 1888, Chile Park and Plaza de la Victoria – were filled with exercisers. Swimming was born in the mouth of the Salado River, cycling in the inner ring of the old hippodrome, and sailing and rowing in the Guayas River. Thousands of young people from Guayaquil join the sport every day.

Brain drain, players preferring to try their luck outside of Guayaquil and managerial lapses

The decade of the 20s was very fruitful. Under the inspiration of the Seminario, the Sports Federation of Guayaquil was founded in 1922. Two years later, it was called the Guayas Sports Federation, whose associative example swept the entire country. This federation enabled the appearance of three athletes, including Alberto Jurado González from Buenos Aires, at the Olympic Games in Paris in 1924. In 1925, Manuel Seminario managed to get Fedeguayas accepted as a member of FIFA and the International Tennis Federation. In 1925, Seminario was the manager of the foundation of the National Sports Federation of Ecuador, to which the Fedeguayas ceded their international members.

My encounter with history, 60 years ago

The international significance of Ecuadorian sports began with the stunning victory of Los Cuatro Mosqueteros del Guayas in the Sudamericano in Lima in 1938. A quartet of youth from Guayaquil, swimming only freestyle, defeated entire teams and brought our country its first international victory. We would need a book that would describe the great triumphs of tennis player Pancho Segura Can – national, Bolivarian, South American and world champion -; Luis Alcívar Elizalde, the first South American record holder in history, dethroning the record of Olympic champion Alberto Zorrilla in 100 meters freestyle in Buenos Aires in 1939; gold, with the record of swimmers Héctor Guerrero de Lucca, Ricardo Planas, Alejandro Sangster and Mario Acevedo in the 4×200 free in South America in 1941 in Chile.

In 1942, boxer César Salazar Navas, from the Student Sports League (LDE), was the Latin American flyweight champion. It is impossible not to mention Abel Gilbert, South American champion and record holder in 1949 in Montevideo; Jacinta Sandiford, high jump gold medalist at the 1951 Pan American Games and Jorge Delgado Panchana, two-time Pan American champion in 1971 and 1975 and two-time Olympic finalist in 1972 and 1976; Miguel Olvera and Eduardo Zuleta, South American tennis monarchs in 1962; Olvera and Francisco Guzmán who eliminated the United States in the 1967 Davis Cup, Mariuxi Febres-Cordero and her five South American titles in 1976, and Andrés Gómez, the 1990 Roland Garros champion.

Terrible topics about the greatness of the sport of Guayaquil that time will erase from the collective memory in these times when the sport in our city died a long time ago. Fedeguayas celebrated its centenary between glasses of fine champagne. Nothing else could immortalize such a brilliant story. Reality shows that the centenary should have been celebrated in a vigil. Guayaquil founded and developed football in the country. Alfonso Suárez Rizzo, Marino Alcívar, Ernesto Cevallos, Eloy Ronquillo, Jorge overalls henriques and enriques Muscovite Álvarez shone in the South Americans, and he was recruited by foreign teams. Guayaquil created federal and intercollegiate tournaments, rookie leagues, hives that produced great figures.

Professionalism in football was born in our city in 1950. All the boys from Guayaquil wanted to play for Barcelona and Emelec, the most popular clubs. If they did not reach that honor, the rest were North America, Panama, Chacarita Juniors, Unión Deportiva Valdez, Guayaquil University Sports League, Everest, Patria, 9 de Octubre, Spanish and Customs. All with smaller divisions. The reserve tournament and the Ascension division were also played. Real stars came from Huracán, LDE, Uruguay, Chile, Caupolican, Manta at the Fedeguayas championships.

Fields of rookie leagues such as Juan Díaz Salem, Novatos del Norte, Unión Deportiva Guayaquil, Liga Deportiva Independiente, Liga Norero and many others were visited on Saturdays and Sundays by youth crack seekers. Panama founded the Cadet School in 1940. It was the cradle where Jorge and Enrique Cantos, Galo Solís, Enrique Romo, José Pelusa Vargas, Nelson Lara, Manuel Valle and others were born who built the idolatry of Barcelona. When those boys went to the shipyard, Dantón Marriott Elizalde brought out another young brood that included Alfredo Bonnard, Gerardo Layedra, Isidro Matute, Marcos Spencer, Galo Pombar, Kléber Villao and the Garzón brothers.

Intercantonals were the nursery of great players. From the Guayaquil team to the best teams Enrique Raymondi, Miguel Country house Bustamante and Nelson Áurea in 1958. Unión Deportiva Valdez was founded with valuable footballers born in the cantonal league tournaments: Honorato Marshal Gonzabay, Gaston spool Navarro, Leonardo Mondragón, Carlos Serrado, Segundo Viteri, Julio Caisaguano, Flavio Nall, Hugo Pardo and Carlos Titán Altamirano. The Santa Elena Cantonal League produced Alberto and Marcos Spencer, Enrique Borello, Arturo brave Aguilar, Luciano Macías and many others.

Today there are no more Guayaquil footballers. Yesterday’s great clubs have disappeared and all that remains are Barcelona, ​​​​​​​​Emelec and Guayaquil City – a team without any tradition. Cantonal unions died. The newspaper EL UNIVERSO noticed that Barcelona does not register players for the U-20 national team that will go to the World Cup, and Emelec has two that it acquired this year from the Orense club.

In 1954, the first South American youth match was played. In Ecuador were Santiago Elejalde (Everest), Sixto Suárez (Homeland) and Pablo Ansaldo (Barcelona), Luciano Macías, Miguel Esteves (Barcelona), Raúl Argüello (Emelec), Pancho Jordán, Enrique Mendoza (Panama), Gonzalo Salcedo, Clímaco Cañarte (Barcelona), Pancho Campoverde, Miguel Toral and Víctor Quevedo (North America). Along with Leonardo Palacios, Gonzalo Góngora and Gem Rivadeneira from Quito. All of them were excellent players in the following seasons.

Only the saddest nothing remains from that time. If a young figure appears, the ‘buyers’ clubs take it. The traditional clubs of yesterday died, the formative ones, rookie leagues, interschool championships ended, and the boys replaced their beloved ball with a ‘smart’ phone. Courts and streets are empty.

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