posted by ElDiablo at 20:21
On the YouTube website I stumbled upon
this video [also at the end of this post - Jaitu] with stuff I last saw twenty years ago and I felt I had to share with you guys, because if you like football you must watch it: ten minutes long (the picture quality is not very good but even so) it is a cracking compilation of goals and plays by a player from the 80's who may be an absolute unknown to the football world outside Spain (where he played for most of his career) or his native El Salvador; but I can assure you, in those two countries the guy is regarded as an absolute legend, a ridiculously gifted player equal to Diego Maradona at his best. His name is Jorge Gonzalez (great surname if there is one) nicknamed 'Magico' ('the Magic one').
Magico Gonzalez played with El Salvador's national team in the '82 World Cup in Spain, where he was spotted by La Liga minnows Cadiz CF. Incredibly, no other team seemed to notice this outrageous talent, despite being named in the tournament's best 11. He signed and needed just a couple of games to become a god-like figure to the fans. He would play for Cadiz until 1984, move to Real Valladolid for a couple of years, then back to Cadiz for a second spell until the end of the decade.
Physically Magico was far from imposing: not very tall, skinny, ugly, with a big nose and unkempt curly black hair. But he was unique on and off the pitch: as a person he was as laid back as anyone can possibly be. He had no agent and seemingly no interest in money, being unable to remember the exact figure Cadiz should be paying him and publicly admitting he would be just content to make enough to buy a taxi, then retire. He would turn up for a training session (when he actually bothered to) barefoot after giving his shoes to a beggar. He had a tendency to fall sleep, although this probably was a consequence of his love of the night: David Vidal, his coach at Cadiz at the time, used to go looking for him in Cadiz's nightclubs, Magico would spot him coming through the door and run to hide in the space under the DJ's decks or behind a curtain. More often than not he would fall sleep there and be found in the morning by the cleaning lady. He was allergic to training: Cadiz would accomodate training to the afternoons to make it easier for him to turn up but even then he would ask Vidal at the end of a session "What are we doing tomorrow?"; if the answer was physical workout he would just tell him "I'm not coming" and that was it.
Nevertheless people loved him, he fit in so perfectly with the offensive, running-is-for-cowards style of the team and the chilled-out vibe of the place: Cadiz is a sunny Andalusian coastal town in the southern-most tip of Spain, known for its beautiful bay and beaches, its carnival and the locals' relaxed attitude to life. Magico enjoyed himself off the pitch but still thrived on it: his performances didn't go unnoticed but his antics were putting off big teams from making a move. At some point FC Barcelona asked Cadiz permission to take him on loan for a summer tour to the USA, with a view to a permanent move. Cadiz agreed and Magico was told to be at the airport next day at 7am to catch the flight to Barcelona. Knowing him, David Vidal turned up at Magico's flat at five in the morning to take him to the airport and make sure he didn't miss the flight. He rang the bell and surprisingly Magico answered the door immediately: "Because I had to be up early, I didn't go to bed last night" he explained. Once they got to the airport he asked Vidal for some money because he only had 2500 Spanish pesetas on him for the whole trip (that's about £10). Barca in the end didn't sign him. During the stage in Los Angeles, the fire alarm went off early one morning at the hotel where the squad were staying, all the players and staff made it quickly to the outside of the building - all except Magico; someone got up to his room to check on him: they found him in bed with a Californian woman, he kept protesting "it wasn't me, it wasn't me".
I used to have a video tape with a 'best of' compilation from La Liga in the 80's, with Magico featuring heavily. But my sister destroyed it by taping some New Kids On The Block crap on top. It was good to find this and be able to see again the genius in action.
Labels: Clip, ElDiablo, Football, Magico
