Enrique Cantos Guerrerohistorical player of the league Barcelona SChe was born in Guayaquil on February 25, 1925. His extensive career allowed him to be recognized as one of the idols of Idol. His ideal position was inside right. He is the only Barcelona player to win the tournament amateur (1950), the professional title of Asoguayas (1955) and the first Ecuadorian championship for the Yellows in 1960. He even played in the Copa Libertadores de América in his Canarian debut in that competition in 1961. Cantos was also the top scorer in the national tournament in 1960. Career started in the Panama SC team from Guayaquil in the early 1940s, and in 1946 he moved to Barcelona, ​​where he played until 1961. Cantos He was chosen from Guayas and also from Ecuadorwith 17 games and four goals in the Tricolor.

Enrique Cantos was protagonist of the first victory of the Ecuadorian team in the Copa Américawhen he defeated Colombia 4-1 May 2, 1949. Cantos was the author of the first goal against the Colombian goalkeeper at the San Januario Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Brazilian journalism, after appreciating the virtues of the Cantos, published in the paper: “The perfect famous mouse plays in the Ecuadorian team.”

At the tournament amateur of the Guayas Sports Association from 1948, a match against Emelec was scheduled for September 1st. It was just that day The EL UNIVERSO newspaper christened the duel Clásico del Astillero. That year, Barcelona had a luxury striker: José Jiménez, Enrique Cantos, Sigifredo Chuchuca, José Down Vargas and Guido Andrade.

Mauro Velásquez Villacís commented: “When I played with the Panamanian team from Guayaquil, on the tour they did in Colombia, Cantos had the privilege of being the first foreigner to walk out on the shoulders of the Pascual Guerrero Stadium in Cali“. The Colombian press, adoring, called him “extraordinary” and predicted that “in a short time he will show his skills in other countries of the world.” Mario the journalist Chausson Valdez Zevallos, in an illustrative exaltation, extracted from his brilliant and expressive mind, describes Birdie Songs as a representative of authentic neighborhood football, trained from classic roadlessness and broken shoes. He began to stand out as a boy in the courtyard of the old Jockey Club, now the Civic Center. with the body to be jockey, he showed cunning and liveliness on the ball, thought and moved quickly, rarely missed in front of goal. He always played with soul amateur. His movements were very inspiring, an expression of the beauty and color of football.

Ricardo Vasconcellos Rosado points to Cantos as a decisive factor in the creation of idolatry and describes him as a representative of street football and the rookie league. “Cantos compensated for his smallness and fragility with incomparable cunning. He had great ideas on the field which he embodied with supreme skill.”

Cantos revealed the secret of the bicycle to Vasconcellos Rosado. He explained that in 1947, Deportivo Cali arrived in Guayaquil with Roberto Scarone, a figure of Uruguayan football. He saw him perform a unique performance, he seemed to be riding a bicycle. Cantos began rehearsing and perfecting it for its premiere at the Shipyard Classic on September 21, 1948.

Turns out yes Scarone, the Uruguayan player who held the patent for the game, named the bike, he did so by stopping and resuming the game. The difference compared to Birdie Yes, he put a chain on him because he was pretending to stop with the ball, but he didn’t; he tipped his booty over the ball and continued to run, spilling his opponent’s mark.

Cantos noted the bike as his masterpiece in a famous and memorable match organized to collect aid for the victims of the earthquake in Ambat on August 5, 1949, a terrible earthquake that claimed the lives of more than 6,000 people. Through the efforts of Guayaquil Mayor Rafael Guerrero Valenzuela and Guayaquil leader of Colombian millionaires Mauro Mórtola, a team from Bogota appeared in our city.

At that time, Millionaires had a staff composed of many personalities, such as Adolfo Pedernera, Néstor Raúl Rossi, Alfredo Di Stéfano, among others. A few days ago, Colombian journalist Mauricio Silva Guzmán published a book The best team in the worlda tribute to that team that played a spectacular match against Barcelona on August 31, 1949 in a packed Capwell Stadium, with almost 30,000 spectators.

Barcelona defeated the all-powerful Millionaires 3-2, a result that no one expected. A magical night in Guayaquil, the idol of the shipyard triumphed. Enrique Birdie Cantos had the luxury of repeating the cycle several times, the famous play that he performed approaching the line, as a type of right wing due to his speed technique, and became a right inside. In that part, he donned his special artwork to drive the Canarian fans crazy.

A few days ago, on May 7th to be exact, in the Reader’s Letters section of the newspaper, I found one in which there is a kind of justification for the work of art that Cantos designed and displayed on the football field. It was written by mechanical engineer Luis Eduardo Rosero Cruz, who claimed that he had been hearing sports announcers boasting that such and such a player had built a bicycle for some time. Whistleblowers are expressing their ignorance. They believe that the left foot rolls from right to left when the soccer player goes over the ball. Or if the right leg is used, it is crossed over it in the opposite way.

Engineer Rosero justifies his just claim by recalling that the one who immortalized such a skillful game was the great Enrique Birdie Songs and that the authentic way he rode a bicycle was to go back and forth over the ball, rolling in a straight line on one leg. The show was so famous that Puerto Rican singer Daniel Santos, known as The restless Anacoberoin the song Barcelona champion, In one of his stanzas, he says about the 1960 monarch: “Barcelona, ​​give her chicha, give her a girl to enjoy”. And he says: “Alume opens for Aguirre, who mocks the man, relies on Cantos who builds a bicycle.” He completely agrees with Luis Rosero, who warns that ignorance does not give the right to misrepresent reality and, even worse, ignorance of history.

The life of Enrique Cantos is full of brilliant events and anecdotes that increased his popularity and the special love of yellow fans. The leadership of Barcelona also recognized her memory, baptizing one of the Monumental generals with her name. There is also a bust in his honor, unveiled in front of the stadium in 2017, when José Francisco Cevallos was president of the club.

The glory and memory of this great player is endless. Birdie died at the age of 70, on February 19, 1996. For me, the Cantos perfected the motorcycle. He was quite the football talker, for his wit and wit. Because he was brave and lucid, because he despised the rudeness of the guards and because he was able to play with the joy of a street soccer player. (OR)