A host of football legends have fired this Tuesday at the Benito VillamarÃn one of them and very refined, the captain of Betis JoaquÃn Sánchez, the ‘feint and sprint’ as he was defined on the line-up loudspeaker, in an emotional A tribute in which the Verdiblanco Coliseum registered a full house of 59,621 souls to say goodbye and surrender to who has been their watchword for fourteen of the twenty-three years that the portuense has been active.
JoaquÃn, with two goals, has also been the football star in a nostalgic delight that was 6-4 in favor of Betis but was the least of a night of strong emotions for the captain. And the sixth was a monumental ‘folha seca’ by Marcos Assunçao, ‘the goalkeeper is scared’.
And a special night in which JoaquÃn left in the 17th minute of the second half chanted with ‘Joaqui, Joaqui’ and replaced by the 18th, the Mexican Andrés Guardado, as Betic captain while the footballer was hugged in the changing room tunnel for his wife and daughters through tears that have not stopped coming to him since Sunday: “it’s over”, he said as he took off his boots in the locker room where he ruminated on the scope.
With gray hair and extra kilos, the late-race class has predominated, such as the Brazilian Denilson de Oliveira –’aires de samba’-, Santi Cazorla, also a scorer along with Ricardo Oliveira, Nolito (2), Juanmi Jiménez, Sergio León and Ruben Castro; or José MarÃa Gutiérrez ‘Guti, in addition to other unlikely glimpses of others such as Julio Baptista or Diego Tristán
Football has been the alibi, the common thread, the ‘leitmotiv’ of a massive goodbye in which many idols were with the class that exalted a generation of footballers who today did not want to miss a basilical VillamarÃn.
The legends came out with Casillas, Sergio Ramos, Marchena, Capdevila, Angulo, Dani Ceballos, Guti, Luque, Baptista, Cazorla and Raul; and Betis, with Toni Doblas, Aitor Ruibal, Juanito, Rivas, Miranda, Assunçao, Joaquin Denilson, Fernando, Borja Iglesias and Oliveira, all with a link to the Portuguese, active or retired, in the Spanish national team, in the Malaga, Valencia and Fiorentina as Borja Valero.
Referees by Eduardo Iturralde and with the president of the Board, Juanma Moreno, on the stage, were coming out changes: Antonio Barragán, Antonio Avarez ‘Ito’ Diego Tristan, Benjamin Zarandona, Arzu, Fernando Varela, Nolito, Mendieta, Duda, Albelda, Ruud Van Nilstelroy, Edu, Bellerin, Washington Tais, Koke Contreras, Pepe Reina, Fernando Morientes, Ruben Castro, Sergio Leon, Ayoze Perez, Capi and Ricardo and Lucas, the two brothers of the honoree, Alvaro Cejudo, Juanjo Canes, Bruno Saltor or Ignatius Camacho.
Earlier, on a stage set up in the central circle of the Heliópolis stadium, Eva González gave way to MarÃa Rosa GarcÃa, Niña Pastori in the century, the Cádiz-born cantaora whom JoaquÃn watched with rapture and admiration from the band while he sang to the Cádiz of the two and after Alejandro Sanz told him in a recording that it was “a gift” and that he appreciated his way of seeing life and doing things.
Thousands of throats wearing the ’17’ received JoaquÃn, the legends of his friends and, above them, Betis from the diaspora such as Héctor BellerÃn, Fabián Ruiz, Dani Ceballos, and the captain of Sevilla, Jesús Navas, received by VillamarÃn with a standing ovation.
JoaquÃn, although he had a farewell last Sunday against Valencia, has cut his ponytail today like the bullfighter he always wanted to be and who has been doing his thing, and he has done it before friends who has been a machine for making béticos from a very young age. style.
Two teams, the Betico team trained by the Chilean Manuel Pellegrini and the one made up of JoaquÃn’s teammates and friends by José Antonio Camacho, have measured their forces in a farewell in which the Cádiz-born footballer has entered the Verdiblanco Olympus in his own right, Above many, they form Luis del Sol, Rogelio Sosa, Julio Cardeñosa and Rafael Gordillo.
The festivities of JoaquÃn’s farewell began two hours earlier with the transfer of the buses to the stadium, where the Betic fans were waiting for them, who, as in major events, have not stopped cheering with flags and chants of ‘Joaqui, Joaqui’ the delegations until their arrival at Benito VillamarÃn, which was already a party.
Everyone who has had to do with him has been with JoaquÃn and, among them, the coaches who have directed him throughout his career, from Fernando Vázquez, who made him debut in the Betis first team in 2000 against Compostela, to Pellegrini , Lorenzo Serra Ferrer, with whom he was the Copa del Rey champion in 2005, and Quique Setién.
Two hours of goodbye, of nostalgia for an everlasting football that said goodbye to the ‘feint and sprint’, a race final that at that time was also immortalized in the Torre del Oro and for the children with cancer to whom he will go party revenue.
