The year 2023 ends today and at midnight the streets of Buenos Aires will light up with the traditional lighting of dolls and the noise of rockets and firecrackers. It is customary that the so-called old years are mainly characterized by public figures, outlaws and hateful politicians, of dubious wealth, failures and liars. It is a kind of social revenge born out of despondency and disappointment of the whole community.

Maybe in the future we should include those who led Guayaquil to sports death in the midst of a recruitment frenzy to build or fix scenarios for nothing, since there are no athletes. Artificial grass and multiple brushstrokes for a stadium where no one plays an official game. How many years have passed since the Guayas Sports Federation football championship was held?

The only users of that scenario are rockers and merengueros who rent it for concerts. Athletes, not one. There were no cyclists at the velodrome for 20 years because there is no cycling in Fedeguayas. Thousands of dollars were invested in an athletic track for a dozen men who wanted to lose pounds of fat for the sake of exercise. The Voltaire Paladines Coliseum has been repaired, but its thick padlocks open only for preachers, political events or reggaeton orchestras.

How many years have passed since playing a first-class basketball tournament? Wasn’t the last boxing match held in the 20th century? amateur? Professional boxing died decades ago when the management itself scared away the promoters who filled the coliseum on every billboard.

If you asked me which old year I would burn first this midnight, I would say the one that personifies the leaders of the Fedeguayas, and less the one that has nothing to do with the mistakes, waste and abuses they committed in 2023, among them the violent occupation of the facilities of the Honorato Haro Foundation .

He would also light a huge bonfire to burn two old years, one yellow and the other lead and blue. The roles of Barcelona and Emelec were a disgrace. Deplorable institutional disorders, stormy election processes, schools full of mediocrity, extravagance in unjustified contracts, dubious renewals in the eternal creditor, terrible campaigns and a hazy future.

After Nicolás Romero Sangster, Aquiles Alvarez Lértora, José Tamariz Crespo, Carlos Coello Martínez and Gal Roggiero Rolando, there is very little to spare in Barcelona. From a solvent team, it became the most indebted club in history. From the legacy of the Astillero district, it became the legacy of the Buenos Aires sector in Avellaneda; of the Guayas River became settled in the La Plata River. It seems that his future is painted in light blue and white to replace the beloved gold and crimson: a former footballer and another who wants to play until the age of 50, both Argentine, are preparing to direct the destiny of the club that is the symbol of Guayaquilism.

In Emelec, the memory of the storms in the last year that almost led to relegation remains a burden. If it was a formal club, without pressure and managerial scandals; After a decade on the podium under Nassib Neme, he has moved into 2023 full of bugs and glitches that need to be ironed out if his drivers are to avoid a Category 5 hurricane. First, organize the internal affairs of administration and communications. Then, avoid internal strife that undermines the prestige that still remains. And thirdly, to put together a team with good judgment, without attracting expensive or cheap worn-out footballers.

Guayas has lost its dominance at the national level. To the unity that is the strength of AFNA, which also has control over the Ecuadorian Football Federation although it denies it, football in Buenos Aires looks powerless and disunited, without strength and without ideas. The numbers of Roggiero and Coello at the national level are gigantic next to today’s leaders. Fedeguayas no longer gives numbers because there has been no championship for years. Barcelona and Emelec are buying rather than investing in their training departments.

There are no players that attract like there were before. Yesterday’s boys wanted to see Enrique’s mischief Birdie Poems, José Vicente Crazy Balseca and Daniel Goat’s leg I paint; brilliant goals by Carlos Raffa and Simón Cañarte; the spectacular defenses of Pablo Ansaldo and Cipriano Yulee; José’s talented creativity Down Vargas and Jorge Child Bolaños; fierce blocs of Clímaco Cañarte and Washington Chanfle Muñoz; Tiriz’s devilish dribbling and Pedro’s fantastic overhead kicks Parakeet León and Victor Ephanor. For which soccer player of today would you leave a family obligation to go see him play in the Pro League?

I would furiously burn a dummy that personifies the Conmebol directors, who do not respond to the request to nominate a Copa Libertadores top scorer’s trophy with the name of Albert Spencer, the top scorer in history with 54 goals, every year. Maybe they have some juicy work on their hands to put a commercial brand name on it. What is strange and deserving of condemnation is the silence of Francisco Egas and the head of the FEF. No one supported the request, which received the full support of Uruguayan journalism and only half of that of Ecuadorian journalism.

Atilio Garrido, Alfredo Etchandi and Raúl Tavani, consular figures of Uruguayan sports journalism, cannot understand how colleagues from our country discuss the universal dimension of Spencer and dare to compare him with soccer players of limited and even obscure international significance. Everything is based – we told them – on a psychiatric problem more worthy of a couch than a journalist’s comment: fierce hatred for history, for the past.

Everything that happens today is sacred; what happened yesterday has been demonized. A shooter who was compared to Pelé and positioned as a superior shooter compared to Eusebius; who is classified among the Immortals in volume 14 Oceanic Football Encyclopedia; one who appears in the top 100 footballers of the 20th century; the one who was world champion twice with Peñarola; the one that made Pelé tell Pablo Forlán that he had topped him; The man who changed Uruguayan football with his speed, ball control and spectacular goals has been discredited by young people who hate memory and form a tribe called mamertos.

“Before, stupid people were ashamed, now they proudly expose themselves and still pay you for stupidity. I’m very afraid of that because nobody says anything (…), the viralization of stupidity and unculture makes me panic and sad,” said Martín Bossi, Argentine actor and singer. I dedicate this quote to the mamertes before lighting a bonfire and burning their rudimentary intellectuality and disgust according to the books.

To all those who love sports very much and wish that one day sports Guayaquil, Barcelona and Emelec return to greatness, I wish happiness and wealth in 2024. (OR)