No matter how much punishment he received, Carlos Caszely (Santiago de Chile, 1950) never shied away from contact. Neither against defenders, nor far from the pitch, where he always stood out for his commitment and rebellion.. The former Levante and Espanyol player, one of the best forwards of the 70s, will be remembered as the footballer who refused to greet Augusto Pinochet. And like the national idol who shouted the goals with left-wing fervor. Today, 50 years after his arrival in Spain, he speaks to EL MUNDO, still enveloped in grief for his deceased wife.
His signing for Levante is still surrounded by a certain mystery. Can you clarify how the agreement was created? After a friendly in Seville with Colo Colo, where I scored a goal, the president of Levante, Manuel Grau Torralba, approached me with a representative named José Luis Torcal, to hire me.. Grau was afraid that I would return to Chile because of the turbulent political situation, so he did not hesitate to follow me to France, which, along with Italy, had already broken relations with my country due to the coup d'état.. And it was in Paris where everything was resolved. How do you remember that Spain that was enduring the last blows of the dictatorship? On October 6, 1973 I married María de los Ángeles Guerra, my partner, and only two days later we arrived in Valencia in the middle of a tremendous reception. Spain and Chile were very different. In my country, just when we were beginning to get used to a democracy, that incomprehensible coup d'état arrived. I was finishing my student years and the university was teaching you many things.. Because football was a wonderful, incredible world, but in the classroom you understood that sometimes you had to raise money to help those next to you. You have maintained that you were able to play for bigger clubs, but that the operations were not closed because of your political militancy. Are Real Madrid included among those clubs? Shortly after signing for Levante, a locker room colleague told me: “Chilean, they tell me that Madrid has been following you.”. I had scored many goals that year in the Copa Libertadores with Colo Colo and that must have triggered interest. Do you think there was some kind of veto on the part of General Franco? I don't think it was directly Franco, but rather it was due to the thought of the Madrid board. It should not be forgotten that Paul Breitner was fired shortly after those famous photographs next to a poster of Mao. Years later, after a great season at Espanyol, where we reached the Cup semi-finals, Johan Cruyff asked me to be hired for Barcelona. I didn't even have a representative and the president of Espanyol told me: “If I sell you to Barça, I have to leave the city.” In the National Stadium of Santiago, which was a detention and torture center in 1973, the banner: “A town without memory is a town without a future”. Do you feel a part of the history of your country? Of course, without a doubt.. And it seems very good to me that there is a minimal part of the stadium, even if it is just a few boards, where what happened then continues to be remembered.. I had many university classmates among those who were retaliated against, including those who made up the Chilean soccer players' union. Hours before the last general elections in Spain, Borja Iglesias and Héctor Bellerín took a political position and asked for a vote “in favor of progress”. Does the footballer have a moral obligation to enter politics? Undoubtedly yes. Because first we are people and then footballers. Just like you are a person before you are a journalist. Do you take it for granted? No, because I am not a communist. I am a footballer with a social conscience. That's my motto. I have never signed nor will I sign for any political party.
Caszely, in Barcelona, in an image from 2015. ANTONIO MORENO Did you send, as your enemies said, part of the money you earned in Spain to finance the armed struggle against the dictatorship? That is the biggest lie they invented to take me off the pedestal. I have never, ever contributed money, but I have collaborated with someone who was going through a bad time or with a political prisoner. In 1978, before returning to Colo Colo in exchange for eight million pesetas, you rejected a substantial offer to play in Arabia Saudi. How do you see this phenomenon today? Today, football is money. At that time, they already offered me a huge amount, but that was not life. I could adapt, but not my wife, nor my two daughters.. My wife could not wear a miniskirt, nor go out with her face uncovered. Hours before Chile's phantom victory against the USSR, when the Soviets did not show up in protest against the coup d'état, FIFA summarized the situation in their country with two words: “total tranquility”. Half a century later, is the highest organization still blindfolded in cases like the World Cup in Qatar? It is worth clarifying that when the FIFA representatives arrived at the National Stadium, the military had already hidden all the political prisoners, so they couldn't see anything. As far as today is concerned, FIFA remains an entity completely separate from national or international legislation.. It's like the Vatican: no one can mess with them. Only two months earlier, on June 6, you had lost the playoff match of the Libertadores final in Montevideo. Salvador Allende went so far as to say that Colo Colo was “the only thing that keeps the country united”. What was the president like over short distances? I was only with him three or four times, nothing more.. Don't forget that in the context of an underdeveloped country, it was normal for the president to receive us as ambassadors of the nation.. At that time, Chile was in great turmoil and divided.. The only moment of tranquility, among so much revolt, was when Colo Colo played the Libertadores.
In Chile we still cannot talk about full democracy, because 50 years later we do not even know where the disappeared are.
Will one day, sooner rather than later, as Allende said, “will the great avenues open through which the free man may pass”? Here in Chile, even today, we still cannot speak of a full democracy, because 50 years later we cannot even We don't even know where the disappeared are and what has happened to so many people persecuted by the dictatorship. You will always be remembered for the moment you refused to greet Pinochet during the reception at the Diego Portales building before leaving for the 1974 World Cup. Always They remind me of it in every interview, yes. I did not want to participate in that meeting. It was a very tense situation, but I still remember an enormous silence before you approached and Pinochet's sour, dirty and hard look. In the Spanish stadiums they shouted “sudaca” at you and you faced a fan who asked you if you knew how to play with boots. However, he has never been in favor of sanctions for chants against footballers.. Do you still think the same after the recent racist episodes? One of the main problems of our time is that we are excessively sensitive about some topics. I still have a friend in the neighborhood whom I call El Negro Juan. It depends how you look at it and how you take it.. It is very sensitive material and in some matters you can get involved for something you did not intend. You return to Spain from time to time. Do you see our country very changed? I still have great friends in Madrid, Valencia, Seville, Bilbao. In 2015, the last time I visited them, I was reunited with many pleasant memories. But now I am haunted by enormous sadness due to the death of my wife [in February 2022], which does not even allow me to cross the border with Argentina.. In any case, I have followed with great interest the results of the last Spanish elections. Do you perceive a reactionary regression in our country? I don't know. I do not have enough information to offer you a conclusive answer. In his last season with Levante, just after the 1974 World Cup, he did not hesitate to play in the Third Division, with many matches on dirt fields.. Why did I only play at home? After a game in Ibiza, where I was even kicked in the back, I had a conversation with the president and the coach. That was when we decided that he would no longer play as a visitor.. For that reason I could only score 26 goals that year. You received the first red card in the history of the World Cup, for responding to a provocation from Berti Vogts. Even today, watching videos and replays, I find it hard to believe, but Vogts tells me went down 13 times with kicks. Years later, the German coach admitted that he had specifically prepared Vogts for specific marking against me and against Cruyff. In his last World Cup, in 1982, he was still the star of a team where Elías Figueroa and Pato Yáñez shone.. However, his missed penalty against Austria at the Carlos Tartiere was taken as the symbol of the Chilean debacle.. Do you think they passed the bill on you for your political activism? Yes, of course.. It was taken as my personal failure.. They made a fuss about me in the press. They said every outrageous thing that hurt me to the core. At least, I knew that I had my partner by my side to get out of that terrible moment. Not only did I suffer pressure from the media, but even when I played at home with Colo Colo, my own fans harassed me. You have acknowledged that you failed in your two World Cups with Chile, in 1974 and 1982…Yes, and I repeat it again. new, because I am not afraid of the word failure. The only thing that scares me is not being able to get up from every failure.