Before going out onto the field, the coach, José “Chengo” Canteli, asked the players to do everything possible so as not to be embarrassed by the best team in the world. Nobody imagined that a while later, on that May 10, 1964, Columbus of Santa Fe I was going to break an undefeated 43 game against Santos de Pele so that the legend of the Elephants Cemetery was born.
Colón achieved a historic triumph: he defeated Santos 2-1, which was made up of Pelé and who had just been a two-time champion of the Copa Libertadores and the Intercontinental Cup in 1962 and 1963.. Consequently, Sabalero won nothing more and nothing less than the best team in the world, which on top of that had been invited to 43 games.
The friendly was part of one of the many world tours of the Brazilian team. The then president of Colón, Pedro Ítalo Giménez, decided to bring Santos, taking advantage of his tour of the country. To go to play in Santa Fe, the Brazilian club received exactly the sum of 2,597,460 pesos and insurance to protect the legs of their cracks. It was the last friendly in the country, the previous ones had won them all: against Godoy Cruz in Mendoza, against Talleres in Córdoba and against Boca and Racing in Buenos Aires.
A few years ago, a video appeared in which Pelé himself referred to that game. “We came from beating Boca, River, Inter, Racing… Santos was undefeated and when we played there, we lost. I remember that I scored the first goal, luckily. After, I think that from then on everyone began to call the field the Elephants Cemetery “recalled the Brazilian star.
The match between Colón de Santa Fe and Santos de Pelé
The day of the match against the Brazilian team It is estimated that there were about five thousand spectatorsmore than the capacity of the Brigadier Estanislao López stadium, real name that it still maintains, accepted.
The red and black formation that coach José Canteli put on the court was the following: Juan Luis Pérez; Larpín, Bareiro, Poncio and Ediberto Pérez (Ceballos replaced him); Broggi (Gómez), Cilenio López, Cabaña and Serenotti (García); Luis Lopez and Fernando Lopez.
While Santos, led by Luis “Lula” Alonso, formed with: Gilmar; Lima, Modesto, Joel (Mauro) and Giraldinho: Almir (Rossi) and Zito (Ismael); Peizinho (Dorval), Coutinho, Pelé and Pepe.
The opening of the scoring occurred 37 minutes into the first half through Pelé, after a wall with the great Coutinho, his partner. While the sabaleros goals were going to come in the plugin. At 6 minutes Fernando López scored the temporary equalizer. And at 42, Demetrio “el Ploto” Gómez sealed the historic triumph and unforgettable that gave way to the legend.
The Elephant Graveyard
The story says that “The Elephant Graveyard” appeared months after that glorious night. It was in the editorial office of the newspaper El Litoral that this inspiration arose. Because 1964 was an exceptional year for Colón.
Barely four months after defeating Santos, on September 7 he won another remembered friendly, this time it was 2-0 against the Argentine National Team, which in June had become champion of the Four Nations tournament in Brazil, beating the locals, with Pelé as Scratch figure. Two months later, on November 9, they beat River in another 2-1 friendly. So it was that after that series, the stadium, by an occurrence of the mentioned newspaper, took the nickname with which it is known to this day.
Also read: Copa Libertadores 2022: 24 years after Colón’s debut in the tournament
In addition to Santos, the five major Argentine soccer teams fell in that stadium, as well as the National Team and even Peñarol, in 1967, when it was still the American and Intercontinental champion.
Santos with Pelé, one of the greatest teams in history, won 15 national titles, two Libertadores Cups and two Intercontinental Cups. But that May 10, 1964, he fell to his knees in Santa Fe.
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