Barcelona SC and Uruguayan coaches: fraud case, headlines and three famous figures

Segundo Alejandro Castillo completed the ‘life cycle’ in Barcelona SC, which Ecuadorian coaches who have been sitting on the club’s bench for the last decades have. That is, being called up when there is an emergency (essentially firing a DT by a foreigner), serving a very short temporary period, and eventually being replaced, regardless of how they fared because a foreigner was hired. Of course, there is a waterfall of words of official thanks for the national reprieve.

Matías Oyola is a candidate for the sports vice president of Barcelona SC in Rafael Verduga’s team

Last Wednesday afternoon, the leadership of Corrida reported that the Uruguayan Diego López will lead the first team for one year (until July 2024; that is, along with Damián Díaz and his endless contract, the current board of directors includes in its “inheritance” a new directory for the Uruguayan professional who will turn 49 next August).

Officially! Uruguayan Diego López will become the coach of Barcelona Sporting Club

There are several Uruguayan strategists who have managed Barcelona SC since 1960. Some of them have gone down in history with a bang. But there are also cases of characters whose steps through the toreador’s box imply failures and dire problems.

Joan Castaño, Barcelona’s young signing, started in Spain as a striker, became a winger and established himself as a defender

Julio Kellman ‘broke’ the club

The first Uruguayan DT who arrived at Barcelona SC was Julio Kellman, in 1960. On November 27 of that year, under his command, the bullfighters began counting down the prizes at that tournament in Ecuador. In January 1961, Kellman, with 35,000 sucres provided to him by the board of directors, went to Colombia to arrange friendly matches in preparation for Barcelona’s debut in the Copa Libertadores. It wasn’t until February 19, 1961 that it was announced that Kellman had disappeared “in such a mysterious way from our country,” writes EL UNIVERSO.

“Dangerous for Barcelona SC, such a limited team, to defeat Estudiantes”, “He didn’t do much more than La Plata”, and more reactions from the Argentinian press

José Bruno Cavanna, the Canaries’ president, said Kellman “would harm the team that treated him so well during his time in Guayaquil.” The leader warned that he would seek the intervention of FIFA. The manager ordered the Uruguayan to return to the country “immediately”, but he never responded.

Juan Julio Agresta and Juan Faccio, in 1968 and 1969 respectively, are other heavenly players who were coaches for a short time as Barcelona fans. Both of them in the Škvera team had a bad career.

A trio of legends!

Uruguayan star at the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland Juan Eduardo Hohberg, who as coach of the Celestes finished fourth at the 1970 World Cup in Mexico, led Barcelona SC in 1986. That year, with the famous Executioner Canaries Hohberg brilliantly advanced to the semi-finals of the Libertadores and closed the campaign as runners-up to Ecuador (previously coached Everest, Emelec, La Tricolor in the 1982 World Cup qualifiers, and joined Liga de Quito in 1988).

In 1987, a hero of Uruguayan football landed in Guayaquil: Roque Gastón Máspoli, goalkeeper at the Maracanaza in 1950. He was a 70-year-old veteran when he became an Olympian with Barcelona SC at the end of the season, the same year he reached the semi-finals of the Libertadores (a competition in which as DT Máspoli was a champion with Alberto Spencer’s Peñarol; with that club he also won the Intercontinental Cup against Real Madrid. He won the Mundialito with his homeland in 1980). Máspoli was the first coach of Barcelona at the opening of the Monumental stadium on December 27, 1987.

Between February and May 2007, Luis Cubilla was the yellow coach. He is one of the most successful DTs who came to the team from Buenos Aires. His career included eight titles in Paraguay with Olimpia and one in Uruguay with Peñarol. Also, famous Black In 1979, Cubilla made Olimpia the monarch of the Libertadores, the Inter-American Cup and the world. In 1990, he again led the Asunción team to the top of the Americas, in the Recopa Sudamericana (which he also achieved in 2003) and in the Super Cup. He couldn’t do anything with Barcelona fans and their bad 2007 team.

Almada, significant

From mid-June 2014 to the first half of 2015, Rubén Israel was at Barcelona SC. The Uruguayan was the coach in the so-called Final of the Century, lost to Emelec in two matches (1-1 and 3-0). Israel succeeded Guillermo Almada, who stayed until 2019. With the Uruguayan, the Toreadors won the Ecuadorian title in 2016 with offensive football. And in Libertadores 2107, the last stop was in the semi-finals.

Almada went to Mexico, and in Barcelona he was replaced by his compatriot: Leonardo Ramos. It only lasted six months. In October 2019, he resigned, and when he left, he denounced that there were “strange things” in the actions of the team during the elimination of the Yellows in the semi-finals of the Ecuadorian Cup.

In April 2022, Montevideo’s Ramos complained: “Pancho (Cevallos, president of Barcelona as early as 2019) warned me that there are players who have been sold.” Immediately, the former goalkeeper presented his version of the accusation: “What he (Ramos) mentions, that there were sold players, we are not familiar with that. Then he mentioned something about betting and that topic remained in the air.

Uruguayan ‘borrowed’

The Uruguayan line did not stop. The troubled Ramos left to face the 2019 phase playoffs (the format in which that championship was played) José Francisco Cevallos came up with an unusual and criticized idea at the time: to borrow a coach. The chosen one was Tabaré Silva, who in a kind of ‘rental’ led only two quarter-final matches against Aucas. Barcelona SC is eliminated. A year after that strange loan, the Uruguayan still asked Cevallos to pay the contract.

There is a famous Uruguayan who was an undefeated champion with Barcelona SC in 1965. That is José María Chem Rodriguez. It was crowned in the now defunct Guayas Football Association professional championships. This football globetrotter, who also worked in his homeland, in Mexico, Chile and Paraguay, returned to the yellow club in 1977. (Rodríguez left, and at the helm remained physical trainer Aníbal Gutiérrez Ponce, who left before the league. Already converted into coach, Gutiérrez Ponce was a champion with Uruguay at the 1981 South American Youth Championship held in Ecuador).

In the qualifications for the World Cup in England in 1966 Chem Rodríguez was the DT Tricolora who was close to qualifying. He led his team in six games in 1976. (D)