“That Naples was a great team. They not only had Maradona. I remember Careca, to Alemao, Ferrara… ”. Jon Andoni Goikoetxea (Iruñea, 1965) recalls with a smile and a point of longing a football from another era in which Real was also about to make history. The Navarrese winger, now a member of Barcelona's scouting department, played as txuri urdin before signing for the Barça team, from 1988 to 1990, and participated in the 88/89 UEFA Cup in which Real lost on penalties in quarter finals. In a hypothetical final they would have faced Naples Maradona, ultimately champion. This would have been a good time to have a margarita pizza with Vesuvius in the background. The appointment will arrive 31 years later.
“It was a very beautiful Real”, he remembers for MD in a kind way Goikoetxea. “A mixture of seniority and youth,” he adds. “They were Górriz, Larrañaga, Zamora or Gajate and a very beautiful generation of young people: Loren, Uria, Iturrino, the deceased 'Musti' Mujika, I learned a lot with Toshack Y Boronat”.
KO in the quarterfinals against Stuttgart
What started as a miracle turned out to be a fantastic adventure. La Real qualified in the first round, in Prague, with two final goals from Loren Y Loinaz (3-2). They had won 2-1 in the first leg, lost 3-0 with a quarter of an hour left and came back. From there, he almost reached the semifinals.
“We had a great competition,” he recalls Goikoetxea. “We eliminated Dukla
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Prague, to Sporting of Lisbon, to Suburb, where I scored a penalty goal … We were advancing and, against Stuttgart, we were about to go to the semifinals ”, he points out. And it is that after matching Zamora in Atotxa 1-0 in the first leg, Real fell to the German team on penalties after SourcesIn extra time, a resounding goal failed in the line that gave Real to the prelude to the final, where Napoli would wait.
The peak moment of ‘fluff’
“I would have been very excited to play against MaradonaHe was my idol ”, the Navarrese goes back in time. Before that, we should have given an account of Dinamo Dresden, which Stuttgart got rid of with solvency. The final would have been another story. Naples rolled in the competition. After eliminating the Juventus in rooms and at Bayern
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Munich in the semifinals, he also beat the Stuttgart in the decisive tie by a 5-4 aggregate (then the UEFA final was played in two legs). It was the first European title, and only one, of the Partenopean club, which the following year (1990) won the League.
It was the peak of the seven years that the ‘fluff’ played Maradona
in San Paolo (1984-1991) that turned him into a god that allowed the modest soccer of southern Italy to become an alternative to the always economically powerful north, embodied by Juventus, Inter or Milan. “With all due respect to current football, Maradona he was a player who won only the matches “, he says categorically Goikoetxea. “He led Napoli to win two Scudettos and one UEFA. Today is the day that the whole city still idolizes him ”.
The 1989 quote is the story of what could have been and was not. Tomorrow's in Anoeta is real and Goikoetxea He does not rule out that the Txuri Urdin could claim victory. “Napoli has a lot of history behind it but Real may surprise you,” says Iruñea's, before praising his former team. “It is a daring, beautiful team, with many young people, in which people from Sanse enter and it is not noticeable, in which the signings work … From outside it is envious. And I am also glad that there are Navarrese who work ”, he concludes‘Goiko’Enchanted with the contribution of Monreal Y Merino.