The Paraguayan Erico, football acrobat
Nicolas Mouneu | 31/08/1939

South America has always had the privilege of counting surprising football players among its athletes. Who doesn't remember Scarone, Petrone, Andrade and Nasazzi?

Who hasn't heard of the black Gradin, of Seoane, and, today, of Peucelle, Moreno, Minella, Enrique Garcia, Leônidas, Domingos da Guia, Masantonio? None of them, however, have certainly experienced such enthusiasm from their admirers as Arsenio Erico.

For your information, Erico is neither Argentinian, Brazilian nor Uruguayan, but Paraguayan, from Asuncion. In short, this is quite rare because we are not used to hearing Paraguay named as a football country. And yet the South American nations know that there are excellent elements there. The proof is that another Paraguayan leads the attack of Boca Juniors: Benitez Caceres. However, he is not as good as Erico, who is indeed the most extraordinary football player that we have ever seen.

No one in the world, without doubt, makes more amazing bonds than him. You almost believe it is rubber. Whatever his position, he will always jump a head over the greatest opponent. The number of goals that he has been able to score with the head is prodigy. As to the other goals! All you need to know that for three years he has been a recordman of successful goals in Argentina. And with the customers we find there, it represents performance.

He catches the ball in whatever position it is thrown at him. And, precisely, always at the moment when the goalkeeper least expects it. It is no longer football, it is "malabarism".

Orsi's opinion.

Raimundo Orsi, the famous Italian player, Argentinian by origin, said to me one day of Erico:

— I've never seen anything like it. What does Erico do with the ball?

» It looks like he's wearing the ball strapped to his shoes, leading her with his knees, with heels, with the whole body. One would really believe that he tames it.


*   *   *

Simple, clear, this young and beautiful boy, with wavy black hair, who is only 24 years old, never reminders, because he wants to forget it, that he was at the Chaco War. Only one thing pleases him outside the cinema and his great Argentine star, Libertad Lamarque: football.

— When it comes to beating a goalkeeper —, Erico said to me, — I like to beat him from a distance as much as from close range.

— Would you like to play in Europe, in France, particularly?

Erico: Why not, if the offers were interesting.

And the most devil of the red devils (Independiente), who likes neither tobacco nor balls, returns to the cinema.