He’s screaming silently and no one seems to care. To say that Horacio Baldessari is an idol of Sporting Cristal and was a scorer who inflated the nets of Peruvian soccer, is not new and is falling into the commonplace. But affirming that he is having a hard time and needs his friends, is important. Close to the emblematic Lobaton Market in the district of Lynxseveral months ago the popular ‘Pepa‘ He lives in a hotel where at night people don’t necessarily go to rest.
More information: ‘Pepa’ Baldessari and the truth of the ‘clean up’: “They suspended me in perpetuity”
There, the former sky-blue striker has settled there for months and no one knows exactly why they don’t evict him, if he owes more than six months’ rent. But that is not the only problem that the former Florida player faces, there is also the issue of his daily food. There are days that he manages to have a good breakfast or some bread in the afternoon that alleviates his hunger all morning. Really unbelievable that all this is happening.
Former sky blue striker seeks to leave the country (Photo: Lenin Tadeo)
The last time we met, it was in the middle of the New Year’s Eve parties and we went to have breakfast. Despite the time and the years that have passed, he is one of those characters that people never forget and it is normal that wherever he goes, they greet him and he smiles with the few teeth that he still has in his teeth. ‘If for each greeting, I charged a sun, I would be a fierce millionaire‘, he tells me with that glow of enthusiasm that he still hasn’t lost, but that I discover is starting to fade from his gaze.
We order a coffee, their bread with chicharrón and suddenly the miracle happens. The young lady who attends us speaks to him aloud: ‘Sir, they already paid your bill.’ Further on, a man close to sixty years old tells him: ‘Good luck’ and leaves. “Pepa” shows me the tender and trembling side of him: “This must be ‘celestial’, because those from the ‘U’ wouldn’t invite me, unless it’s poison‘ and he lets out a laugh.
‘Pepa’ Baldessari confessed in ‘La Fe de Cuto’ the severe penalty he received for the famous ‘cleanup’. Photo: Composition.
DO NOT ASK YOUR FRIENDS FOR HELP
I dare to contradict him, I clarify that all the fans love him and he just smiles. I go further and ask him: ‘Don’t your friends help you?’ and he is silent for a few seconds, something typical of him before proceeding to his speech. ‘You can’t be “huffing” your friends every day. It is requested once, but not daily‘.
READ: “I’m not going to allow it”: ‘Pepa’ Baldessari responds after Comizzo calls Sporting Cristal a ‘small team’
Obviously, after a few good sips, the question matures: ‘What are you going to do?’ and the answer is painful, hard, cruel, for a man who speaks like an Argentine, but I know, he loves Peru. ‘I’m going to my land. In Córdoba there is still the house that my parents left, at least there I have a place to die’.
This is how terrible the present of this number ‘9’ is. He needs the club, the fans and everyone who thinks they owe him a ‘thank you’ for what he did with the light blue shirt, to come together.
If in Florida they have given a job to so many former soccer players who did less than ‘Pepa’, it is fair that they give him a chance. Idols deserve to always live on their feet.
