The legendary Argentine center back Jorge Griffa, champion of the Copa América with his team, a League, three Cups and a European Cup Winners’ Cup with Atlético de Madrid and hero of a promotion with Espanyol, died this Monday at the age of 88. age, as reported by the club where he trained and of which he was a follower, the Argentine Newell’s Old Boys, from Rosario.

“We deeply regret the death of Jorge Bernardo Griffa. The Maestro, undisputed symbol of Newell’s, was a player, youth coach and the creator of the leper hotbed that gave enormous figures to the world. Your legacy will always be part of our history, may you rest in peace “, the Rosario club published on its social networks.

Griffa played for five seasons in Lepra before joining the Colchonero team in 1959. With the Madrid team he would play 291 games in ten seasons in the club, with which he would win five titles: the League in 1966, the club’s first three Cups in 1960, 1961 and 1965 and the 1962 European Cup Winners’ Cup.

In 2019, he returned to the club to receive a tribute in front of the fans at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium, where he was visibly overwhelmed by the affection of the fans. “This is an excess, I just tried to do things in the best way and nothing is done alone,” he declared.

After finishing his red and white stage, he played for RCD Espanyol, which had just been relegated to the Second Division, and with which he achieved promotion to the highest category of Spanish football before his retirement from football in 1971.

His time in the League will always be marked by his reception with Franco after a tough confrontation with the San Mamés stands when he played for Atlético, as he himself explained years later: “I went crazy! I was like that. He was ready to hit me. “With the 10,000 in that stand, one by one, I felt capable! I don’t know what was going through my head! For Atleti, I was capable of anything…”.

“They took my statement and left me in the cell, with four five pickpockets,” he continued his story. Franco’s Civil House told me that the next day we had to go see Franco in El Pardo. I was very worried…”.

“‘So you are Griffa, the one who armed him on Sunday in Bilbao – Franco told me -. Look, boy, the Basques think they are taller, stronger, richer and smarter than anyone else. But to me, who I’m Galician and short, they listen to me. Because I know how to treat them. Don’t make another mess like that. And now, go in peace,'” he explained.

He also had the honor of winning the 1959 Copa América with the Albiceleste, which was played precisely in Argentina, against Pelé’s almighty Brazil, which came to the tournament after being world champion in Sweden the previous year.

After his retirement, Griffa would return to the Newell’s youth ranks to be a coach. From the red and black bench, he promoted the promotion of footballers of the stature of Jorge Valdano, Ricardo Giusti and Gabriel Batistuta. Later he would arrive at the Boca Juniors quarry, where he was also the discoverer of talents such as Éver Banega, Fernando Gago or Carlos Tévez. The current Uruguay coach, Marcelo Bielsa, according to Griffa himself, is “his best student.”

Jorge Griffa left a lifetime dedicated to baseball captured in his book “39 years in lower divisions”, where he told of his great experience as a coach.