Renaldo

Renaldo

Copyright © 2006 James McCreath

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 1-4196-3918-8

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JAMES

McCREATH

RENALDO

2006

Renaldo

For My Ladies: Annie, Kari, Carly, Christie, Coco, and Isabella.

You Are The Sunshine Of My Life.

Córdoba, Argentina. December 5, 1977.

The young Porteño had never been this terrified in his life. The monster

surged from behind, almost engulfing them at times. He knew that he

could easily outrun the deadly creature, were it not for the slower members of

his group who stumbled and groped their way down the narrow alley.

Gordo was the worst, far too obese to keep up the frantic pace. The red

and black torrent was gaining on them, hurling insults along with rocks

and bottles. The boy knew all too well what would happen should they be

overtaken, for this monster was both human and inhuman.

A narrow lane intercepted their path, and he could see that his amigos had

swung off to the right. But Gordo had missed the turn and plunged straight

ahead, knocking over several refuse cans in the process.

It was hard to believe that just thirty minutes earlier, this same corpulent

straggler, now panting and pallid from exertion and fear, had taunted a stadium

full of enraged Córdobans. With cocky bravado, he had boldly questioned their

mothers’ virtue, the size of their cojones, and worst of all, their team’s penchant

for dull, defensive football. The first two insults the locals could dismiss from

this fat fool, but the third, perhaps because it was bitingly true, set the mob

upon them.

Gordo was a well-known lawyer back in Buenos Aires, a self-important,

larger-than-life figure with an overinflated ego. His sharp tongue had often

gotten him into uncomfortable situations, but this was by far the most

serious.

Like the majority of his peers that had made the journey to Córdoba,

Gordo was a Porteño, or ‘person of the port.’ He was an Argentine national,

born and bred in Buenos Aires. Born and bred or not, all the men that had

accompanied him this day were impassioned supporters of the Newton’s

Prefects Football Club. A trainload of fans had traveled the five hundred miles

to this quaint provincial capital for the championship game of the Argentine

premier soccer league.

The atmosphere had been electric as the Prefect partisans staked out

their tiny corner of the menacing Córdoba Stadium. Deep inside the lair of

the monster, seething with forty-five thousand rabid adversaries, the brave few

hundred manifested their colors defiantly to the hordes on the terraces.

JAMES McCREATH

“Preeeeeefects! Preeeeeefects! Preeeeeefects!” was the call to battle that

accompanied the brandishing of their inflammatory black-and-white flags,

scarves, hats, and banners. This display summoned even louder venom-

filled jeers, taunts, and shouts from their hosts. Gordo led the rebuttal with

a boisterous Prefect fight song. That made him a man marked for ‘special’

attention.

Throughout the game, the Prefect supporters in general, and Gordo in

particular, were subjected to bottles and smoke bombs, insults, and incendiaries.

The visitors remained steadfast in their resolve, however, with an unflinching

belief in the ultimate destiny of their team.

They had waited so long in obscurity for a chance to, once again, reach the

pinnacle. That moment was now at hand, and in the minds of each and every

Porteño, the championship trophy belonged back in Buenos Aires, not in this

city of peasants and farmers! Perhaps that is why the less refined Córdobans

truly hated the arrogant, urbane boasters from the nation’s capital. They were

so impudent in their team’s support!

It mattered little to the hometown fanatics that the Prefect organization

was one of the most tradition-steeped clubs in the entire nation. As a founding

member of the Asociacion Del Futbol Argentino in 1893, the Newton’s

Prefects Football Club was originally formed to offer a recreational outlet to

the offspring of British scientists and investors who had played such a large part

in developing and modernizing this vast country.

The very first teams were made up exclusively from the graduating class

or ‘prefects’ of the Sir Isaac Newton Academy of the Sciences. This renowned

English language preparatory school in Buenos Aires was established in 1865

as an old-world safe haven, intent upon salvaging a proper ‘English’ education

for the male children of United Kingdom transplants.

Newton’s all-British professional side was the dominant master of the

game in the early years of formal competition. But as so often happens in

sports, a glorious beginning eventually gave way to mediocrity, then near

obsolescence as native-born players took to the game of football with unbridled

Latin passion. The foreigners finally succumbed to using a sprinkling of home-

grown Porteño talent to increase fan support and stave off bankruptcy, but by

the 1920s, the once-proud side had been relegated to third division status, a

place where it would remain for nearly five decades.

The team’s fortunes began to change for the better with aggressive new

ownership in the mid 1970s. The purse strings were opened to acquire more

highly skilled players. This rekindled the long dormant interest and affection

for the ‘Black and White.’ The signing of two world-class professionals at the

start of the 1977 campaign, striker Ruben Gitares from the River Plate Club,

and defender Jorge Calderone from the Boca Juniors, turned out to be just the

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RENALDO

tonic needed to raise the efforts of the team’s supporting cast to their highest

levels.

The Prefects had finished fourth in the premier division standings, then

upset the highly favored first place Independiente club in a brutally rugged

semifinal fixture that saw several people killed in its acrimonious aftermath.

The victory over Independiente set the stage for this pilgrimage to Córdoba,

whose heroes had disposed of River Plate in the other semifinal game.

Now, with the ultimate prize beckoning, the event set to take place inside

this boiling concrete cauldron was far more than just the playing of a football

game. This was blood sport! The blood of your ancestors and family against

the invaders. Pride and passion. And so it would be on this beautiful afternoon

in Córdoba.

The home team, Talleres F.C. of Córdoba, clad in their all-red strip with

black numerals, showed a stubborn willingness to defend their honor and their

goal with great spirit and courage. For a while, the ‘Reds’ did manage to bring

the Córdobans to their feet, but it was all in the realm of the negative . . .

defense!

Little by little, the tension in the ranks of the red defenders grew. Their

goalkeeper, a gangly, mustached custodian named ‘Puente,’ made several

inspired saves, but he was also quick to chastise his cohorts. The finger-pointing

and verbal dressing-downs escalated with every Prefect sortie into Córdoban

territory. Puente pleaded for some offense from his teammates, but the best the

Reds could do was to clear the ball either out of play or far upfield, yielding

possession to the waiting Prefect midfielders.

Finally, in the twenty-first minute, Gitares, the brilliant Prefect striker,

was sent through on a pinpoint pass from Calderone. One-on-one with the

keeper, he feinted to his left, then sure-footed the ball into the top right corner

of the net from twenty yards out. The spirit of the huge crowd seemed to

deflate en masse, except for that tiny corner filled with the now even more vocal

visitors. There, Gordo was waving his monstrous all-black flag while shouting

insults at his enemies just beyond the eight foot high, barbed wire topped

barriers.

Three more Prefect goals followed in the second forty-five minute half,

sending the majority of the local patrons on their not-so-merry way before the

conclusion of regulation time. Not the Newton’s Prefect supporters though!

They remained on the terraces to soak up every blissful moment. At the final

whistle, Gordo managed to avoid the disinterested security forces standing

idly on the warning track and marched onto the pitch, his huge flag waving

defiantly to and fro above him.

His Newton’s Prefects were the champions of Argentina, and the

celebrating would start right now! Taking the fat man’s lead, more and more

3

JAMES McCREATH

Prefect supporters converged on their victorious heroes at midfield, singing,

hugging, dancing, and scavenging pieces of the lush green carpet.

From where he stood on the terrace, Renaldo De Seta could see the trouble

coming. In the far corner of the stadium, a mob of vocal, young Córdobans

was also making its way onto the pitch, angered at the insult of having these

buffoons on their sacred turf. The security forces remained stationary on the

perimeter of the field, allowing the Córdobans to swiftly set upon the still

reveling visitors.

In an instant, elation became hysteria. An incendiary flare exploded in the

midst of the Prefect supporters, and the screams of the burnt victims could be

heard by Renaldo fifty yards away. He could barely see the mêlée through the

thick, maroon smoke, but he knew that his compatriots were in serious trouble.

The observer quickly looked for the nearest escape route, then leapt into action.

Gliding over the barriers, he soon reached what looked to be a senior officer in

the National Guard.

“Why do you stand here and do nothing? People are going to get

hurt! Surely you have eyes, you must be able to see that yourself! Please do

something!”

The officer looked at Renaldo with disinterest and disdain, shrugged his

shoulders, then started to turn away. The commotion on the field was getting

louder by the second, and it was only the report of several gunshots that startled

the officer into action.

“Please help them get out of the stadium,” Renaldo pleaded.

There was a fire in the young man’s eyes that the officer could not ignore.

He looked past the youth out onto the pitch. At that very moment, a Prefect

supporter staggered out of the smoke bleeding profusely from a gash to his

head.

The visitor is right!
the officer thought. If he didn’t save these rabble-rousers

it could ruin his career, and they certainly weren’t worth that.

A piercing blast of the military man’s whistle brought several subordinates

running to his side. Renaldo stepped back as the uniformed group held a brief

conference. A lieutenant screamed into his walkie-talkie as the officer turned

to Renaldo.

“We will try to separate them and cordon off an escape route through the

nearest tunnel. After that, you are on your own.”

The warning track that surrounded the field was now teaming with

guardsmen, bayonets affixed to their carbines. A corporal handed the lieutenant