Hugo Gatti & the dormant sun

Hugo Orlando Gatti, el "Loco", he started his brilliant and extremely long career as goalkeeper in Atlanta, back in 1962, Atlanta, a first division but modest club of Buenos Aires, also known as "The Bohemians", it was due vehicle for the first forays into professional footie, for a Gatti who quickly started standing out, as a goalie of extra ordinary merit, and strong personality. 

In 1964 his talent caught the eye of the powerful River Plate, club which acquired him, to be a young alternative and eventual substitute for the legendary Amadeo Carrizo, one of the greatest goalkeepers in the history of the Argentine football. 
Gatti stayed in River up to 1968, playing often in the place of the veteran Carrizo, and demonstrating his quality in so many Sunday afternoons... notwithstanding, throughout the years, a curious and notable characteristic was more and more clearly noted in Gatti, characteristic (or external factor) which -somehow- conditioned his footballing proficiency on a football field: the sun. 






The sun, yes: the Sun, so, with caps... a certain famous Uruguayan radio commentator, nicknamed "Fioravanti" (Joaquín Carballo Serantes), he noted for the first time, and after following the River Plate performances, how Gatti played "much better" when "the blond Phoebus was shining in the sideral firmament" (sic). 
Unlike this, his performances in cloudy and rainy afternoons found his abilities considerably diminished, let alone the rainy or hazy nights, when his portentous saves and magisterial elasticity were reduced to their minimum possibilities. 

Transferred to Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata, for which he appeared in 244 league matches between 1969 and 1974, this rare if not fascinating characteristic in the Gatti's performances got increased: shining like the potent Apollo under the smiling Sun, when his goal turned –almost- into impenetrable aim for the rival, the sunny Sunday afternoons saw him like a new Achilles of the goal, always victor and imposing, strange counterpart of his forgettable rainy or foggy Winter matches, when a benumbed, slow and weak Hugo Orlando Gatti was beheld by thousands of eyes, which didn't believe what they were seeing. 

After a short but successful season in Unión de Santa Fe (provincial club), Gatti was acquired by Boca Juniors in 1976, his definitive club, and the team he is most linked and associated with, being so far, the player with the most appearances in Boca's history. 

His ability to "guess" the rivals' intentions, an almost supernatural intuition about the immediate movements of a forward, his strange skill in anticipating the rival into the box, and his uncommon, unorthodox ways, using his feet -almost- more than his hands, gave him fame of extravagant genius, which possibly he was. 

In fact, Gatti didn't consider himself a goalkeeper, he always said he was a forward... 

Hugo Orlando Gatti coined the term "hacer vista" (to watch), incomprehensible and semi-esoteric tactic he claimed to have invented. 

"To watch" consisted of staying immobile in his position when the ball was already flying toward the goal, without trying to save it, and just accompanying the parabola of the spherical missile with his stare... and this "to watch" was, in the Gatti's case and cosmology, an almost complete and total certainty that the ball wouldn't enter, simply because his stare would deviate it. 

He abused of this whimsical habit, his stare accompanied the hazardous trajectory of a raging ball, he was static on the grass while his eyes were fixed on the ball, it was impossible that that ball would not penetrate the goal, it was goal, it was goal! 

It would be goal, if the goalkeeper was someone else, but it could not be goal if the goalkeeper "haciendo vista" was Hugo Gatti because, which in any other goalkeeper would be a negligent temerity, in Gatti was audacious certitude... some said that his stare actually dominated the trajectory of the ball. 
And some still say it, like myself. 

His years in Boca Juniors were copious, as copious were his appearances, although that dark duality, between his sunny and his cloudy afternoons, between the solar triumphs of his luminous afternoons, and the cone of shadows where Gatti entered when Apollyon Victor was not there, they were like the obscure contradictions of a tortured soul, like the life itself. 

Gatti, el "Loco", "the one who catches the wind", he who participated of 47 Copa Libertadores matches, and who was a permanent candidate for the national team (although the coaches often declined, summoning some other goalkeeper, probably due to his extravagant and strange behavior, notwithstanding he was part of the world cup England '66 as a substitute), he found his last sunset the 11th of September of 1988, when Boca played the humble Deportivo Armenio:

on the end of the match, and due to a Gatti's miscalculation, a faceless, nameless forward of Deportivo Armenio, penetrating the Boca's defense like a ghost, scored, the only and melancholic goal of that incomprehensible evening. 

It was the last time Gatti appeared on a field, he was 44. 





As the match ended, stupid, like the life itself, the blind glory of the sunset was hiding itself into the imminent storm, which opened its deaf doors to the pouring rain, and to the night.