TWO LEGENDS IN THE FACE OF A POSSIBLE ALIRRON “We are no longer the‘ pupae ’and we are going to be champions”

His Atletico underwent Real Madrid and Barça at the time. They won three League Championships in seven years and two of them away from the Calderón, so they have enough knowledge of the cause to sponsor Simeone's men who are playing the title in Valladolid. A goalkeeper, Roberto Rodríguez Aguirre (Logroño, 78 years old), and one winger of those who no longer remain, Armando Ufarte Ventoso (Pontevedra, 80 years old), shared a dressing room for nine years. Their experiences have a present.

Gentlemen, no one better than you who have lived in your flesh what Simeone and his men will experience tomorrow in Valladolid to talk about the present and their past experiences.

Ufarte: We are going to be champions. I see the team well, recovered. Safe in defense and in the end he always ends up scoring, even if it costs him. We are superior to Valladolid. We are more of a team and we have better players and in football as long as the contrary is not proven, those who win the games are the players. Of course, it is important to have a coach who knows how to lead the group, but those who are in charge are those on the field. And I say it, that they let me go a bit on my own. It would be very sad to lose this championship that was easier than ever. We never had it like we have had it this year.

Rodri: In the whole of the season, with its ups and downs, no one has done more to win the League. It must have done the team a lot of good to carry out the last game as it did. I didn't see the first goal. I could not bear the nerves and I went to read. My son shouted it and I already watched the game again. In a last game what you have to do is believe in victory. Believe it. This team has the capacity to win. It is not a game of tactics. It is a game of players.

But this Atlético is an author team, it is a very Simeone team. It's undeniable.

OR: Simeone knows what to do. In my opinion, he's a bit defensive when he gets ahead on the scoreboard and backs down. It's a matter of taste, I don't like that, but he understands football like that and you have to respect him. He has good players.

A: I think that's what Armando says. It is his way of understanding the game. I would also like that given that he has good players, he would think at times more about taking a step forward than one behind. We are going to score the second and not defend the first. In football, a goal can be a lot when the game ends, but a goal is nothing while the game lasts and you can be tied on any play. The 1-0 is very treacherous. I would like him to be a bit more daring, but hey, the reality is that he is running some great campaigns and little can be held against him.

Of the 10 leagues won, nine were in the last game and the remaining in the penultimate and also at the Bernabéu. Athletic in its purest form. Suffering until the last day.

OR: It is the consequence that historically we have encountered two rivals such as Real Madrid and Barcelona and it costs a lot to beat them. That's why you have to wait for the last game. In life, in sports, to achieve something you have to suffer

A: It goes with our idiosyncrasy. The problem, and in our time it also happened, is that we never had the mental continuity to endure the whole year up. And when we loosen up a bit like this season has happened, they jump on us. But the reality is that in the last day when we have depended on ourselves, we have rarely failed. I think never. Even the others who apparently win easier suffer to the end and sometimes fail, as is happening. I do not believe that suffering is the patrimony of Atlético. That is a sanbenito that they hung up on us and have never taken it away from us.

We talk about Pupas F.C.

A: That I think we took off years ago. The Champions League finals? It is not the case. In those two games we stood up, we went ahead and we had our chances. I refuse to be followed by the 'Pupas'. Now we are a great club. A great team. We have taken a great leap in quality after crossing the desert. Say it, Armando, you say it best …

OR: I came to Atleti and had not been a champion for 15 years. The first year we won the Cup, the second the League and then two more Leagues and another Cup. When I left in '74 we were the second team in Europe because we had lost the final against Bayern in the second game. Then we did not feel inferior to anyone. I am with Rodri in that the time of the Pupa is over. Now, as a club, we have many more financial resources than ever and I think we can hold out for a long time.

A: In the history of the club there is only one player with four leagues, Alfonso Aparicio, almost all the others who have three are from our time… Luis, Adelardo, Gárate, Jayo, Alberto, Eusebio, Salcedo, Ufarte and I, of course.

OR: The problem with Aparicio, an endearing person, was only one, who had rheumatism in his wallet, as he told Luis and me …

First League of the trilogy. 1965-66. Last game in Sarriá against Espanyol (0-2). Goals from Ufarte and Griffa.

OR: The one who really teaches that team to be champion in the last round is me who had just won the League with Flamengo against Fluminense with 180,000 people in the stands of Maracaná. As if to scare me that last day in Sarriá! What I did was score a goal. As I spent my life giving passes to my teammates that day, I decided to score myself. It was a shot of mine, the goalkeeper rejected and I shot again. The doorman was Carmelo Cedrún.

A: I came from being champion in Second with Pontevedra. We ascended. I remember that that day in Sarriá we had the conviction that we were going to win even though it was a team that had never had that experience. Di Stéfano played for Espanyol. We won that League in a direct duel with Real Madrid. We recovered four or five points from them in the last games. We started winning and winning and we ended up being champions.

The coach was Balmanya.

OR: He got along well with me… The last game was very brave. We played with four forwards (Ufarte-Jones-Mendonça-Collar) and Luis was delayed to midfield with Adelardo. Normally we played 1-4-3-3 with Luis in the middle point. What I never understood was that this team fell apart so quickly. Griffa, Glaría, Collar, Cardona, Colo… We had to build another one.

A: See if he would be smart as a coach that without training we won the League. We ran less throughout the year than is run in a current preseason. He came up with an invention of lifting a few weights that was like Cantinflas's. He was a smart guy. He transmitted what he wanted, but we did not train anything. And the goalkeepers less. It was a League won by the players. I started most of the season, but I was injured in the last two games and Madinabeytia played in Sarriá.

Four years later. 1969-70. Last game in Sabadell (0-2). Goals from Ufarte and Calleja.

A: There the direct rival was Athletic, although Real Madrid started very strong.

OR: My goal was a cross from the left, I stopped it with my chest inside the area and shot to the right of the goalkeeper.

The coach, Marcel Domingo.

A: I knew him very well because I had coincided with him on my assignment to Pontevedra the year we were promoted. He watched football very well. I saw where I had to put the players the first time. He liked to play low-touch football. One or two passes and the ball deep. He put Melo on the side, Eusebio in the center of the field …

OR: He made us play very well. Forward we played Gárate and I. We played very armed. Luis and Alberto helped a lot in the middle of the field. The team arrived well en bloc.

R: In Sabadell everything was fantastic. The whole stadium was rojiblanco. It was the first major massive displacement of a team for a League match. On important days Marcel liked to take us to remote hotels and he took us to Castelldefels, to the Jaime I hotel. It turns out that days before an actor, George Sanders, had committed suicide there and they gave me the room right next door. I always thought it might be a bad premonition, but it was a good one nonetheless. The team was convinced that it was going to win. We were the best team in the Championship without a doubt.

Three years later. 192-73. Last game at Vicente Calderón against Deportivo (3-1). Goals from Luis, Adelardo and Gárate. The direct rival was Barcelona. The coach was the Austrian Max Merkel. Was it as hard as claimed?

A: Not everything that was said about him was true, but that it was unpleasant in ways, it was true. He did not speak a word of Spanish. We understood each other through his second, Negrillo. It was cold. Deep down we didn't know what he wanted to tell us. The few times he told me something typical of the goalkeeper, I did not find out what he was saying. There was a lack of understanding with him, but we won the League and the Cup against Valencia. We won that Cup without training. He had realized that we were so out of training that the last few days we hardly practiced. Everything was pachangas. The less talked about that team, the better.

OR: A done team was found. It worked alone. Physically we had a hard time. He would put us up the stands with vests and medicine balls. I couldn't handle them. I suffered a lot. It was a novelty. In the last game we beat Deportivo. I did not dial. I left Luis. I hit him with a ball the way he liked them. At the first stick. We had that much-talked-about play and he finished off with a header.

“Beyond changing the rules, technically it is the position that has changed the most since my time. Today the goalkeepers, in terms of technique, are much inferior to those of before in everything. You don't work like we did. They may work more with the feet or other aspects, but of course the technique does not. It shows in the placement, in the exits… Before, a little or a lot, you had to go out. Today hardly anyone comes out to clear. Blocking before was forced. If you missed a ball, you got a few fights from the nose. You kept 90 percent of the pitches. The balls may now do other effects because they are lighter, but then when it rained it was soap. They escaped you. I played with woolen gloves made at home. I wore them when it rained, otherwise I played with my bare hands. Gloves as such began as early as the 70s, but I didn't have time to release them. The first one I saw with modern gloves was the German, Maier, who was still a stranger at the time ”.

“Unfortunately they have disappeared. In case there is a dribbler left that sticks to the band, but not like the extremes of before. The one against one is no longer seen. The Eibar boy tries on loan from Sevilla (Bryan). I learned from the greatest, from Garrincha. The best player in the history of the World Cup. When I was in Rio de Janeiro, I would notice his dribbling and I brought him to Spain. You had to have special qualities, a quick exit, look for the defender, face him and go out. If they let me out, it was very difficult to stop me. When they reacted he was already centering. They blamed me for always doing the same dribble, but why would I change if I almost always went away. I saw the legs of the defender and had my moment to go to the right. He no longer plays with extremes or Barcelona, ​​which was the one who maintained the type in that sense. I know there are people who miss the game on the wings. Some of my time who know me tell me. It was pretty. “