For more than a decade, Pope Francis, who died on Monday, was well received in the vast majority of scenarios. However, 15 years before becoming a pontiffJorge Mario Bergoglio lived a disconcerting moment when he was expelled from the locker room of the club of his loves, San Lorenzo, for superstition.
Argentino Alfio ‘El Coco’ Basile He reached the bench of ‘Los Cuervos’ to face a difficult challenge in a scarce team of results despite the great template he had.
In multiple interviews the former Argentine selector what happened to him at that stage. It was March 13, 1998, Coincidentally 15 years before being elected Pope (Fumata Blanca left that same day in 2013), when he debuted on the bench of San Lorenzo.
The ‘Coco’ noticed that a priest of which he had no knowledge entered the costumes of the new gasometer to Greet and bless the players in the previous one of each game. Basile, very cracks and superstitions, asked the then president of the club, Fernando Honey, to throw him out of the costumes for ‘Mufa’ or bad luck.
“I asked Miele: ‘Who is that priest?’ And he told me: ‘Look Coco, he is a priest who always comes here and He is accustomed to greeting players before each game“Basile recalled in an interview with Argentine public television.
“I said: does this guy always come? And what are they going to look for me, they don’t beat anyone, then they hire the priest. Take out this guy who is mufa. Take it now, I don’t want to see any cure in the costumes. I don’t want anyone to distract me the players. “
“Then he goes honey and goes to Bergoglio and says: ‘Look, There is a new technician and he does not like that between anyone strange, So you have to go ‘”, also the former Racing of Avellaneda continued.
Sixteen years later Basile met Honey and asked: “” Did you see who is the Pope? ‘” “And I said: ‘How am I not going to know who the Pope is, came out everywhere,’ and he answers me ‘That is Bergoglio, the one you cast of the locker room’. An incredible thing, “Basile said between laughs.
After the ‘expulsion’ to Bergoglio from the costumes, San Lorenzo won in Basile’s debut, that March 13, 4-1. Ten years later, Bergoglio, already at that time Cardinal Archbishop of Buenos Aires, would be a member of the institution of Bajo Porteño Flores with the card number 88235-N.
