The resources of South America
Nicolas Mouneu | 21/11/1936

— So, Stábile, how is South American football?

Stábile: Always so good. My friends who have stayed in Argentina keep me informed of its progress or its failures.

— Which are currently the best teams?

Stábile: There is hardly any change. In Argentina, it is still Boca Juniors, River Plate, Racing, Indepentiente, Huracan who remain the most famous and rightly so. In Uruguay, Nacional and Penarol. In Brazil, America, Vasco da Gama. In Chile, Colocolo. In Paraguay, Olympia. I am only quoting you here the best of the South American clubs. Peru, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico are already weaker.

The great players.

— And the most popular players?

Stábile: South American footballers have the particularity of holding their place for a very long time. There are a large number of young stars next to them.

» These are the forwards: Ferreira, Minella, Masantonio, Naon, Cherro; Santamaria, Suarez, halves; Cuello, Wilson, Garcia, defenders; Estrade and Bosio goalkeepers. Note that in these new aces is a remarkable right winger of French origin. His name is Peucelle. All are — strictly speaking — Argentines.

» Among the Uruguayans I can cite the centre-forward Ciocca, the backs Muniz, Besuso, Porta, Enrique Fernandez that the Spanish revolution forced to leave Barcelona, ​​and Ricardo Faccio, who was international centre-half for Italy. In Paraguay, Fleitas Solich (who is retiring), Brisuela, Benitez-Caceres, Diaz.

— Why were you talking earlier about strictly speaking Argentinian players?

Stábile: In South America, when a player has a well-established reputation, in whatever country he is, he is almost always bought by a club in Buenos Aires. This is to tell you that all those I have named you have more or less been part of a team from the Argentine capital. Do not forget, in fact, that Buenos Aires has no less than eighteen professional first division teams.

Twenty million in cash.

— And all these clubs are making money?

Stábile: Put that the biggest meeting of the day attracts 90.000 people, the others gradually going from 70.000 to 10.000. This incredible success (and which is the same throughout South America) is due to the very low price of seats. In our case, there are only two categories: 6 francs and 3 francs. In addition, women do not pay.

» As the revenues would not be sufficient, each club has its supporters. They pay around 7 francs per month. This gives them the right to attend all friendly or championship matches and to practice the sport that suits them best in the big omni-sports clubs like River Plate (38.000 members), Boca Juniors (25.000 members), Racing (20,000 members), Huracan (8.000). This provides the club with working capital that the French teams do not have, for example. Consider that River Plate still has cash of twenty million francs.

Championships

— How are the competitions going?

Stábile: Each big city like Buenos Aires, Rosario, SantaFé (there are about fifteen in all), each gobernaçion (small prefecture) like those of Chaco, Formosa organize their own championship. In addition, in each of them a team is selected to represent the city or the prefecture. It is then the Argentine championship. The selection of Buenos Aires was almost always victorious.

» That the French do not rely especially on the Montevideo players who came last year. They were third category men.

— Yet we said that the games were not taking place in South America in the most absolute calm?

Stábile: What do you want, the passion over there is different from here. But, besides, all is calm. A special tribunal has been created. He can suspend the field for an indefinite period and detain overly exuberant demonstrators in prison.


*   *   *

Everything goes. Only in South America the enthusiasm for football remains.