The tremendous blow of our team in the Copa América, which ended on Sunday in Rio de Janeiro, has served to wield all kinds of excuses. After the disastrous era of Luis Chiriboga, Carlos Villacís and ‘the king of cumbia’ Hernán Darío Roll Gomez shouldn’t surprise us anymore. They left installed the prejudice that the America’s Cup was of no importance; that it was only a laboratory for a preponderant and fundamental purpose: to achieve a quota for the final phase of the World Cup.
The unforgettable master of journalism Emilio Lafferanderie (The Veco), in a long talk in Yokohama during the 2002 World Cup, gave me advice: “Journalism serves to entertain and educate readers. When writing, always try to include an anecdote and always remember that, If a note does not provoke a smile, does not provoke a tear or does not generate an argument, that note is useless”.
The tear is present in the resounding failure of the Tricolor in Brazil. It is time to wet the handkerchiefs for those of us who love football and want to always see the national banner upright at the time of victories. It is a feeling for everyone, except for the leaders of the Ecuadorian Football Federation and coach Gustavo Alfaro. Does anyone dare to argue that the America’s Cup was a shameful disaster? Yes, there are, and threefold: leaders, technician and the inevitable troop of addicted journalism, traveler and beneficiary of perks.
The most picturesque alibi have been exhibited by Alfaro and Francisco Egas, those most responsible for the collapse of illusions. “A Copa América does not qualify me for the World Cup, but the experience it can give me, good or bad, qualifying for the quarterfinals, reaching the final, being champion or being eliminated. And I know that the experience that I have is very rich, “said the technician at a press conference on June 26. “This Cup is going to mean growth for the National Team, which, we must remember, is very young,” declared Egas. At this point in the preparation of this column, my great literature teacher at the Vicente Rocafuerte National College has come to my memory. Don Alfredo Barandearán García gave us Spanish literature and before entering the subject that he mastered to perfection, he instructed us about literary genres.
When he arrived at the fable (“Brief fictional story, in prose or verse, with didactic or critical intention frequently manifested in a final moral, and in which people, animals and other animate or inanimate beings can intervene”, according to the Royal Spanish Academy ) quoted Aesop, a Greek author of the late 7th century BC. de C. And he read us the most famous of his productions: The fox and the grapes. A fox sees a bunch of grapes and tries to reach them. Realizing that it is too high, he despises the grapes saying: “They are green, I do not feel like them!” The moral is that human beings by not achieving what we set out to do, we despise the goals or objectives that we did not know how to achieve..
In this example the conduct of those responsible for the abused national soccer team is exactly reflected. Before leaving for Brazil, the Copa América was talked about as a great objective to strengthen the collective performance and recover from the two falls in the tie in June against Brazil and Peru. “As I always tell the players, every competition that I start in whatever team I have to work for, the aspiration is always the highest. We want to make a great Copa América ”, Alfaro told Directv Sports on June 12, before the debut against Colombia. It is not true, then, that the Cup did not matter. The grapes (the Cup) were appetizing, but “they were green.”
Qualifying for the quarterfinals was no merit. We didn’t win any games, we were fourth out of five and we barely scored four goals, despite lining up a lot of center-forwards. We had to resort to two nationalized foreigners: goalkeeper Galíndez (34 years old) and midfielder Damián Díaz (35 years old) who is only to move for 25 or 30 minutes and was summoned by pressure from a sector of the press. Alfaro erred in the approach to the game and in the choice of the players he threw to the stake, knowing that they were not active in their clubs.
The changes were wrong, late and unproductive. To aggravate the atmosphere, he spoke, after losing to Peru in the tie, of “extra-football issues”Within the National Team, but left the subject in the air. He did not have the courage to clarify the reason for his statements. Forced calls? Gamer Entrepreneur Pressure? Intimidation by leaders? Anything can be assumed if there is no courage to put the truth on the table.
Egas did not miss the opportunity to appear on the scene in this nonsense fair. “This Cup will mean growth for the National Team, which, we must remember, is very young,” he told radio Network June 30. Increase? Where? Speaking in that tone after what happened is a joke, “a joke” as Mario Canessa said in a recent column. “You have to put your feet on the ground,” said Egas, although he himself does not know what he was referring to. Scorched earth, consumed by the fire of mistakes and managerial errors. Egas believes that fans have forgotten his extravagances when he chased German Jurgen Klinsmann and announced his hiring and arrival in the country four times, until the Teuton ended up not answering his calls..
Then came the comic episode of the signing of Jordi Cruyff and his rock performance with artificial smoke and led lights. The next day Johan’s son, who had very little experience as a technician, boarded a plane and did not return. Half a dozen coaches were tempted until Gustavo Alfaro appeared, showing the war wounds of his questioned time at Boca Juniors. Egas maintains that the press is responsible for what happens. He is right about something: the guilt of the addicted, submissive press, the one that seeks favors, trips, feasts, charges for relatives is inescapable.
Fortunately, there has been no death of critical and independent journalism, scarce, but with great credibility. “The country has realized how biased this sector of the press is, which offers us a parallel world where everything is wrong, that they do not realize that the National Team is our team, which we must support in good times and in the bad ones ”he told the radio Network, statements reproduced by Diario EL UNIVERSO.
“The journalist’s commitment to the truth and his duty to transmit it to the public is inalienable and it is his obligation to prevent it from being altered under any circumstances, whether due to editorial, advertising, political or economic pressure. The omission, manipulation or falsification of information is a serious offense that threatens the essence of the activity of a journalist ”, says the Code of Ethics of the Chilean Association of Journalists. Journalists are prosecutors of successes and errors, not obsequent propagandists of debatable characters or institutions. Did you know, Mr. Francisco Egas? (OR)