COLOMBIA

Sudamericano jugado en el Centenario. Y
en la temporada ‘68 marcaría un récord no
superado, ya próximo al medio siglo: mantuvo
985´ invicto el arco del Peñarol Campeón
Uruguayo.
Fue titular en la IV Copa del Mundo en
México ‘70, donde los celestes clasificaron a
semifinales sostenidos por el cero gol
en su arco. Sumó 37 partidos frente a
selecciones.
En el ‘72 pasó al Atlético Mineiro
y dos años después al Granada de
España. En 1975 el famoso arquero
Lev Yashin de la ex Unión Soviética,
hizo cuestión que fuese el arquero
en el encuentro en su homenaje en
el entonces estadio Lenin de
Moscú. Actuó en Cobreloa de
Chile en el ‘76 y retornó a los aurinegros
ya como entrenador de
arqueros.
“Murió Mazurkiewicz, nace
la leyenda”, tituló en su portada
el prestigioso diario El País.
Although he may be an
unknown performer in
his suburbs, the
goalkeeper is always more
inclined to narcissism since he
acts on his own stage,
though his failure results in a
collective frustration. That
was what led José Nasazzi to
say “a great team begins
with a great goalkeeper”.
Of the many goalies I have seen, I’ve
never had to deal with anyone like Ladislao
Mazurkiewicz, the “Little one” or
“Mazurka” or “Polish”, with his black hair
parted on one side and a nonchalant look.
He played basketball and one afternoon
somebody told him that he should practice
in Montevideo’s Racing Club.
When I arrived there were 21players. A
goalkeeper was missing and they threw me
ten penalties. I saved six of them, two of
them were goals and two more passed far
from the goal. Finally I remained in that
position. At 20 years of age, 1m 78 tall and
80 kilos of weight, he defied the “missing”
centimeters in a radical way, ignoring them
with an unchanging defying attitude and
totally sure of himself. He was a grim
economist of energies, everything was easy
for him, with his never-failing movements
and an overwhelming sobriety.
Peñarol accepted his transference in
January 1965 and his very special debut was
enough to evince who he was. A couple of
months afterwards the legendary Copa
Libertadores led the gold-and-black players
to a semifinal with “Pele’s Santos”.
Unexpectedly, the regular player Luis
Maidana could not play due to a sprain and
at the Alvear Palace Hotel where Peñarol
lodged, coach Roque
Máspoli and the leaders decided
between the recently arrived footballer and
Eduardo García, regular player in the
Juvenile South American who had defeated
Uruguay in Colombia the previous year.
The man who wrote these lines was
present, so that he attended the safe
delivery of the man that would be
considered the best goalkeeper worldwide.
Roque Máspoli had left in masseur Héctor
Cosito’s ear as the close confessor of the
whole roster, a question that he had to
make alone.
What if it is his turn?
What problem can there be, when to
play you have to swim to Montevideo and
return and I throw myself into the water…
Peñarol eliminated Santos 2-1, thus
giving rise to a never-ending euphoria in
their neighbours, which premises were
taken by the students of a nearby Lyceum.
The road was cut by the students sitting on
the pavement awaiting his return, whether
they were fans of Peñarol or Nacional.
He trained at the very end of torture
accumulating thousands of abdominal
stretchings, balls against his body or the
farther corners and there he went, falling
tied up in knots. Winter and summer, he
played enwrapped in plastic covers under a
thick working uniform, so that at the end of
the day his clothes were soaked in water,
leaving a puddle on the floor.
“The Little One” is an example
for all. He seems to me made of
iron, is as nimble as a cat, and
guesses the game. “He lacks
nothing”, said Máspoli who
somehow understood about the
goalkeeper of that July 16, 1950.
Ever since, he added difficult
consecrations to his name. Uruguay
arrived to the 1966 World Cup without
the necessary preparation. His basic
team, Peñarol footballers, were
incorporated at the last moment. He
made his debut before the football
creators in the legendary Wembley
stadium, in the presence of Queen
Elizabeth II. Nevertheless, he ended with
a 0-0 score which took him to this
judgement in Paris “Football
Magazine”… “Nobody ignored that
Uruguay’s strength was their defense in
whose goal was a real giant. A 21-year old
veteran called Ladislao Mazurkiewicz was
the most brilliant foreign goalkeeper
Wembley had ever seen”.
The following year he added to
his trophies, the South American
Championship played in the Centenario. In
the 1968 season he was to mark an
unsurpassed record already close to the half
century year: he kept the unbeaten goal of
the Uruguayan Champion Peñarol for 985
minutes. He was a regular player of the 4 th
World Cup played in Mexico 1970, in which
the white-and-light-blue team qualified to
the semifinals keeping their goal in 0. He
played 37 matches against National Teams.
In 1972 he passed to Atlético Mineiro and
two years later to Spain’s Granada. In 1975
the famous architect Lev Yashin of the
former Soviet Union questioned the fact of
his being a goalkeeper in the match
organized to render him homage in the
then known Lenin stadium, in Moscow.
He played in Cobreloa in Chile 1976 and
returned to the gold-and-black team as
goalkeeper s’ coach.
“Mazurkiewicz died, the legend is
born”, wrote the prestigious journal ‘El País’
in its cover.
CSF ● 61