Translator: Gisela Giardino Reviewer: Denise RQ I opened a blind man's head. I didn't make him think or reflect; I cracked his head open, literally. He was walking grabbed by my shoulder, I didn't correctly estimate the space between the two and I made him hit against a gate.
(Laughter) Five stitches on his forehead. I felt the worst teacher in the world, I really didn't know how to apologize. Luckily, El Pulga is one of those people who take things quite well.
And today he goes on saying that I was the coach who left the most important mark in his career. (Laughter) The truth is that when I started working at the institute for the blind, I was surprised by a lot of things. A lot of things they did I didn't imagine they could: they swim, do athletics, play cards, drink mate, pour it themselves and don't get burned in the process.
But when I saw them playing soccer I found it amazing. They had a field with two rusted goals and broken nets and the blind who attended the institute would play their games there. Just like I do in a vacant lot near home, but there they were playing without being able to see.
The ball had a sound so they could locate it; there was a guide behind the rival team's goal to know where to kick ball, and they used an eye mask. There were kids who could still see and to play under the same conditions they wore that eye mask. When I got confident, I asked for a mask myself, I put it on and tried to play; I had played soccer all my life.
I found it more amazing still, in two seconds didn't know where I was standing. I had studied physical education because I loved high performance. I had started working there by chance.
My other job was with the Argentinian National Rowing Team, and I felt that was my thing. Here, everything took me double. I'll never forget the first day I did the warm-up with the team.
I put them in front of me, - I had a lot of experience from when I worked with the national rowing team - and I said, "Now, everyone down," and I did this. (He bends) When I looked up, there were 2 seated, 3 lying around, others squatted. (Laughter) How do I do here what I was doing there?
It took me a lot. I started looking for tools, to learn from them, from the teachers who work with them. I learned that I couldn't explain a play on a chalkboard like a coach does, but I could use a plastic tray with caps so they could interpret me through touch.
I learned that they could also run on a running track if I ran with them holding a rope. Then we started looking for volunteers to help us run with them. And I was enjoying it and I was finding the purpose and meaning to the activity.
It was difficult, it was uncomfortable, but I decided to overcome this discomfort. And there came a time when it became the most fascinating job of all. I think that's when I wondered, why couldn't we be, with the blind, a high-performance team as well?
Of course, the other part was missing: to know what they wanted, the real protagonists of this story. Three hours of training on that field we played soccer on were not going to be enough. We would have to train differently.
We started to train harder and the results were great, they asked for more. I understood that they also wondered why they couldn't be high-performance. When we felt ready, we knocked at CENARD's doors, our National Center of High-Performance Sports we have here in this country.
It was hard to have them open doors, but it was considerably more difficult to get the other athletes training there to consider us their equals. In fact, they would lend us the field only when no other teams used it. And we were "the blind", not everyone knew what exactly we were doing there.
The 2006 World Championship was a turning point in the team's history. It was held in Buenos Aires for the first time. It was our chance to prove to our people what we had been doing all this time.
We made it to the final, we were growing as a team. On the other hand, Brazil was leading, so far the best team in the tournament. They were winning every game by a landslide.
Almost nobody believed that we could win that game. Almost nobody, but us. During training, in the locker room, during each warm-up, there smelled of champions.
I swear that smell exists. I smelled it several times with the team, but I particularly remember the day before we played that final. The Argentine Football Association had opened their doors to us and we were preparing in AFA, where Verón, Higuain, and Messi train.
For us, it was feeling like a national team for the first time. The day before at 7:30 pm, we were in the lounge during the technical talk and a young man knocks on the door, interrupting our conversation, suggesting us to go to church; he came to invite us to go to church. I try to dissuade him, replying it was not the best of times, that we better leave it for another day.
And he insists asking me to please let him take the kids to church because that day a pastor came who performed miracles. I asked with some fear what miracle he was talking about, and he easily replied, "Coach, let me take the team to the church, when we return I'm sure that half of them will see. " (Laughter) Some laughed, but imagine you are blind and someone says that.
I didn't know what to say, I kept silent, an awkward silence. I didn't want to make him feel bad because he truly believed this could happen. And one player saved me when he stood up and confidently said, "Juan, Gonza already told you it's not the best time to go to church.
Besides, let me make this clear: we get to go to that church, and I'm part of those half of us who see when we return here, I beat the shit out of you, for tomorrow I won't be able to play the game. " (Laughter) (Applause) Juan left laughing in resignation, we continue with the technical talk, and that night, when I went to sleep, I began to dream the next day's game, to imagine what could happen, how we would play it. And then I felt the smell of champions I mentioned a while ago.
Because at that moment I felt that if the other players had the same desire Diego had to play that game, we could only be champions. The next day was going to be wonderful. We got up at 9 am, the game was at 7 pm, and we already wanted to go and play.
We left AFA, and the bus was full of flags given to us, we were talking about the game and we could hear the honks, and people cheering who were saying, "Go Bats, today is the last day, the last effort. " The boys asked me, "Do they know us? Do they know we are playing?
" There were people who went to CENARD following the bus. We arrived and found a pleasant scene. Along the lane from the locker room to the game field I was walking with Silvio, who grabbed by my shoulder, let me guide him; fortunately, no gates on the way.
When we reached the field, he was asking everything and everybody, he didn't want to miss a detail. Then he said, "Tell me what you see, tell me who is playing those drums. " I tried to explain what was happening, with as much detail as possible.
I would say, "The stands are packed, a lot of people could not get in, there are blue and white balloons all over the field, they are opening a giant Argentina flag that covers the entire grandstand. " Suddenly, he cuts me off me and says, "Do you see a flag that reads San Pedro? " - the city where he lives - and I start looking into the stands and I find a little, white flag written in black spray paint that read, "Silvio, your family and all San Pedro is here.
" I tell him that and he replies, "That's my old lady, tell me where she is, I want to I wave at her. " I orientate him, I show him, with his arm, where the flag is, and he waves his two arms at that direction. About 20, 30 people stand up to give him an ovation, and when that happens, I see how his face changes, how moved he is.
It was moving for me too; 2 seconds later, I had a lump in my throat. It was strange, because I felt the excitement of what was happening, and the anger and the anguish that he could not see all this. A few days later when I told him what had happened to me, he was reassuring, because he said, "Gonza, don't feel bad, I could see them, differently, but I swear to you I saw them all.
" The game started; we could not fail, it was the final. People had to stat still, like here, because in soccer, for the blind, the public has to be quiet so that the players hear the ball. And they are only allowed to cheer when the game is over.
About 8 minutes to go, they cheered what they hadn't in the first 32. When Silvio nailed the ball at angle, they cheered that goal from the heart, in an incredible way. If today you go to CENARD, you will see a huge poster on the door, with a Bats photo.
They are a model national team, everyone knows who they are in CENARD, and after having won 2 World Championships and 2 Paralympic medals, no one doubts they are high performance. (Applause) I was lucky to train this team for ten years, first as trainer and later as their coach. The feeling I have is that I received much more than I gave.
Last year I was suggested to coach another national team, Power Soccer. It's a national team of young men who play soccer in wheelchairs. Motorized wheelchairs that they drive with a joystick, as they have no strength in their arms to drive a conventional chair.
They added a bumper to the chair, a safeguard that protects their feet while allowing them to kick the ball. It's the first time they stop being spectators and turned protagonists. It's the first time that their parents, friends, and siblings go to see them play.
For me, it's a new challenge. Again the discomfort, insecurity, and fear like when I started with the blind. But I face it all from a more experienced position.
That's why from day one, I treat them as athletes on the field, and I try to put myself in their place outside the field. With no prejudice, because treating them naturally is how they feel best. Both teams play soccer; it was something unthinkable for them.
They had to adapt the rules to do so. And both teams broke the same rule, precisely that which said they could not play soccer. When you see them play, you see competition not disability.
The problem starts when the game is over they leave the field, and they come out to play our game in a society that sets rules that almost don't take them on account, that don't care for them. I learned from sports that disability greatly depends on the rules of the game. So I think that if we change some of the rules of our game, we can make their lives a little easier for them.
We all know that there are people with disabilities, we see them daily. But by having no direct contact with them, we are not aware of the problems they face every day. How hard it is for them to get on a bus, find a job, take the subway, or cross the street.
It's true that there is an increasing social responsibility regarding the inclusion of people with disabilities. But I think it's not enough yet. I think change should come from within us.
First, by leaving behind the indifference towards them, and then by respecting the rules that do take them on account. They are few, but they exist. I cracked a blind man's head open: El Pulga.
I can assure you these 2 teams also opened mine, because they taught me how you have to get out there and play every game in the beautiful championship that life is. Thank you.
