2023-10-07 07:36:10
Is there a recipe? A method? A trick? That there is something is more than evident, beyond good archery practice and what is seen every time Sergio Romero flies to a stick: his 192 centimeters, or an athletic condition that allows him to jump from the middle to almost outside the goal , as happened in the second penalty once morest Palmeiras that Paraguayan Gustavo Gómez kicked, or the insight to read the side that his executioners will choose. There is something regarding it, something that makes it different from the average. In that, which is difficult to decipher, is the explanation for this Libertadores final that Boca reached.
Although in these hours of celebrations, exaltations and gratitude – at the Ezeiza airport, in the streets of Buenos Aires, in the radio studio where he went to speak – Romero spoke with the wisdom that years and experience give (“It’s good that I can continue having fun at 36 years old”), the explanation for his success is in his body and in his head. On his healed knee – “I know my wife doesn’t like me to say it, but we have struggled for 15, 16, 17 years with a rather annoying, restless knee. And this last operation in Boca, with Dr. (Jorge) Batista, changed the lives of us, the family and everyone, because it became a new knee for me. Without fluid, pain, or discomfort” – and in a certain spirit of intimidation, something that may have been forged in that scene of “today you become a hero” with Mascherano, in the semifinal once morest Holland of the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Because following those penalties saved once morest Vlaar and Sneijder, Romero’s life changed forever.
What almost no one knew is that his life – or his sporting career – was going to have another turning point like these past few months with the Boca shirt. The goalkeeper himself said it: these hours are the happiest of his career following those of the 2014 World Cup.
Rituals. The Romero method includes cabalas. Or ceremonies. It consists of Romero approaching the goal, touching both posts, stepping hard on the line and hitting his head before each penalty. “That was born in 2014 and that’s it. You saw that when you hold on to certain things, they serve. They are cabals and moments, and I think the issue is also that the forward has to wait for you to do all that,” he said yesterday on the La 100 program in which his partner, Eliana Guercio, participates.
But in addition to that, and his innate talent for having saved 12 of the 23 penalties that were kicked once morest him since he guarded the Boca goal, Romero takes refuge in a team that assists and accompanies him: “Well, I’m not going to take charge of the penalties alone. We have a great working group with Gayoso, with Javi García, Lea. I said it yesterday. That this group of archers is so good humanly…, it is a very good and healthy group. I have known Javi since I was 17, 18 years old, and he is one of the few who told me: ‘You have to save in this club.’ And I told him: ‘Tell me to call me. How am I not going to shortcut…’”.
It is also regarding premonitions. Or predictions. Or, in short, a self-encouragement that later turns into a harangue: believing it. “In the speech I said that I was going to save two. They are unique moments the day before. We were with Marquitos (Rojo) lying on the stretcher, massaging our knees, and one of the kinesiologists had the idea to tell me: ‘Well black man, tomorrow…, you told us once morest Almagro that you were going to save one, and you saved two. You told us once morest Nacional and Racing that you saved two. Tomorrow you have to stop three.’ There I felt inside me that I was going to do something good for my teammates. And well, luckily it happened.” And how.
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