5… 4… 3… 2… 1…
was a number cinco endowed with a left foot of 10…
played alone four matches in the first division…
Three He was injured from those games…
At first he played solo From clubs…
Was a legend.
This is the story of Tomás Felipe “el Trinche” Carlovich, the man to whom Diego Armando Maradona dedicated a T-shirt with the dedication “you were better than me”.
the romantic spirit
El Trinche Carlovich was born on April 19, 1946 in Rosario, one of the most soccer cities in Argentina, birthplace among others of a certain Lionel Messi.
He always said that he never knew why he was given the nickname that would inevitably replace both of his names.
He played all his life in promotion clubsincluding the team of his loves, Central Córdoba de Rosario.
“The love they gave me here reached me and left me over,” he used to say -according to the Argentine newspaper Clarín- when asked why he did not play abroad.
He was defined in many ways: “story character”, “ghost idol”, “skillful bohemian”. A book, a play and dozens of journalistic reports were born from his story.
“Carlovich embodies the amateur and romantic spirit football, that dream stage prior to professionalism,” Argentine journalist Alejandro Caravario, author of the book “Trinche. A journey through the legend of the secret football genius”.
To explain this aura of mystery that surrounds the character, Caravario says that “the legend is made of potentialities” and the myth of this player is riddled with the “what if”: if a big club like River bought him, if Milan took him, if he had played with Pelé in the New York Cosmos.
To explain why he did not establish himself as a first-class player, those who saw him play also resorted to poetic resources: “he was the last rebel”, “he did not want to run without the ball”, “He liked playing football more than being a footballer”.
He defined himself as a loner, “a little horny”, who never arrived early anywhere, except for games.
The link with the ball
When he was 50 years old, Carlovich gave an interview to the journalist Miguel Pisano from the mythical magazine El Gráfico where he recalled his beginnings in the pastures, the improvised cement or earth soccer fields, and also his times in the lower divisions of Rosario Central where his skill came at a price…
“They turned me around like stockings. They kicked me to death! I came home destroyed. I never used shin guards, or bandages, if when I was a kid we played on legs and to the death.”
For Caravario, the Trinche never left this stage behind: “I would appeal, in a somewhat wild way, to psychoanalytic theory,” he tells BBC Mundo from Argentina to explain how a player of these characteristics did not establish himself in the world of football:
“He never surpassed the childhood stage in his relationship with the ball, that notion of soccer how I playand rejected everything that took him away from the fun of bringing the ball to his feet, such as repetitive training or the obligation to mark an opponent”.
In Rosario Central he had his first opportunity in first division in 1970, but he played only one game and left angry with the leaders (there are different versions, some attribute the anger to a debt and others to the fact that following that first game they did not put him back of owner).
should spend another seven years to return to the highest division of Argentine soccer in Colón de Santa Fe, where he was injured in the three games he played.
But the mythical date is April 17, 1974.
That day the argentinian team He played a friendly once morest a team from Rosario in front of some 35,000 people at the Newell’s Old Boys stadium, as part of his preparation for the World Cup in Germany that year.
Legend has it that due to the “dance” that the provincial team was hitting the national team, the coach Vladislao Cap asked that they remove the 5 from Rosario to avoid further embarrassment. When he left the field at minute 60, the national team was already losing 3-0.
“It’s rare that they take you out playing well at 15 in the second half so there was something like that,” he told journalist Julián Bricco in an interview many years later regarding that request.
So close and so far from glory
Carlovich was the only one of that Rosario team that played in B. As Caravario says, “he was the second-order player who had to prove his parchments and he played an extraordinary game.”
The other ten players who took the field that day were from the first division -five from Newell’s and five from Rosario Central- including Carlos Aimar, Mario Zanabria and Mario Alberto Kempes, who would be the top scorer at the 1978 World Cup.
Precisely the coach of the world champion team in 1978, César Luis Menotti, left one of the most famous phrases regarding the Trinche: “It seemed that the ball was taking him, an intelligent ball that enjoys doing artistic things and drags a footballer behind.”
In 1976, when Carlovich was playing for Independiente Rivadavia in Mendoza, Menotti called him up for a friendly for the shortlisted team for that World Cup. The legend, who intervenes once more, says that the player preferred to stay fishing. He denied this version.
Other players from that team that played -and won- the World Cup in Argentina faced Trinche throughout his career and remembered the skills of this midfielder years later for El Gráfico.
“When I played in Sarmiento de Junín, in the Ascent, I fell in love with Carlovich. He was the best player I saw before coming to Primera. A star, I would have liked to be like him”, said Daniel Passarella, captain of the Argentine team in the 78 and 82 World Cups.
“All the technicians I had during my career wanted to incorporate him into their teams, but Flaco never liked leaving Rosario; a real pity”, added Leopoldo Luque.
One of the 1978 champions, the goalkeeper Ubaldo Fillol, summed up what happened in the 1974 match with two exclamations: What a dance they gave us that night and how that boy played!”
The date with Maradona
The stories that revolve around Carlovich say that Milan from Italy wanted to buy him when he was playing with Independiente Rivadavia, but the story that contributes the most to the legend was that Pelé himself wanted it for the New York Cosmos. “He sent letters and everything, but then, suddenly, everything came to nothing,” Trinche recalled.
If his encounter with the historical 10 of the Brazilian team might never materialize, his luck with the historical 10 of his country was much more fruitful.
An article in the Clarín newspaper recalls that in 1993, when Maradona returned to Argentine soccer with Newell’s Old Boys, he said that he believed he was the best, “but since I arrived in Rosario I have heard wonders from a certain Carlovich, so now I dont know”.
In February 2020, when Maradona led the La Plata Gymnastics and Fencing team, the two skilled left-handers met and “el Trinche” managed to get “el Diego” I will sign a shirt from Central Cordoba.
“It was an enormous luxury and joy to have shared minutes with Diego. I spoke in his ear and told him that I was done with this, that my life was complete. After meeting him, I can go quietly,” he declared at the time. And in May of that year he died.
A man who tried to steal his bicycle in Rosario gave him a blow to the head that would cause, first, a stroke, and then death.
Immediately, Maradona wrote one last goodbye on their social networks:
“With your humility you danced for all of us, Trinche. I can’t believe it, I met you a little while ago, and you already left.”
Maradona would die six months later.
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