The tributes to Diego Armando Maradona reach all dimensions. In Brazil, perhaps the most incredible. Thus, on Thursday night, Brazilian coach Renato Gaúcho (or Portaluppi) came out to lead his team, Gremio, in the first round of the Copa Libertadores against Guaraní wearing the '10' shirt of the Argentine national team. Guild won 0-2. The return, next Thursday in Porto Alegre.
Before the start of the game there was a minute of silence for Diego. And a benchmark of Brazilian football like Gremio's coach, dressed in the most symbolic of Argentine shirts.
Born in Guaporé, a Brazilian municipality in Rio Grande do Sul, Renato, 58 years old (two years younger than Diego when he died last Wednesday), reached the First Guild in 1982. And the following year he raised the Libertadores and the Intercontinental. Not only that. That young forward scored both of Gremio's goals against Germany's Hamburg in the final in Japan.
If Renato (Portaluppi or Gaúcho) was already an idol of Gremio as a player, then he succeeded as a coach. In his third stage at the Porto Alegre club -which began in 2016-, Renato won six local tournaments, the Libertadores 2017 (in the final against Lanús) and the Recopa Sudamericana 2018.
As a player, Renato played 41 games for the Brazilian national team, including the 2016 World Cup in Mexico, in which the “canarinha” was eliminated by penalties in the second round by France. The World Cup won by Maradona's Argentina, that of the two goals by ‘Pelusa’ against England, that of the ‘hand of God’ and the prodigious second goal.
