“I said about the cabaret because there was a mole on the campus”: Latorre explained his famous phrase and assured that Boca was “taken down” from Libertadores 91

Today, TV commentator. Before, outstanding footballer. Diego Latorre talked about his “two lives” and reviewed some important moments in his career. Above all, those who were linked to Boca Juniors, where he trained as a player, made his debut as a professional and returned after his trip to Europe.

At the age of 14, Gambetita went to try on the lower ones of the Xeneize. He had been recommended and was signed in Eighth Division. However, he almost dismissed the possibility: “The first training they stole my clothes. I had sportswear and I usually went with brick dust on my sneakers (I played tennis). My world was country and school in La Paternal. I was middle class, not an elevated social class. It did not belong to the aristocracy, but we had a good economic life within the stability of the neighborhood. Clearly when I arrived in Boca I noticed a change.”

In dialogue with the 90+3 podcast, Latorre recalled the change in reality she faced: “I rubbed shoulders with children who lived in poverty, in humility, in violent families. You understand what the world is like. Before that, I lived in a capsule because my old men raised me that way. From school to country, on weekends I played, competed, tennis, football, intercountry and rubbed shoulders with kids of my status. Then I understood that life was not that, that I lived in a world that was exclusive, of few. And that reality was different. It made me understand football and the situations I experienced.”

Having already earned a place in the First Division, he was part of a remembered Boca team that reached the semifinals of the 1991 Libertadores. “I was about to touch it, very close. They let us down. In these times, we would have been champions. In that game with Colo-Colo that I obviously got choked on. The 1-0 in the Bombonera had been short. It was a good Colo-Colo team, it had a good coach (the Croatian Mirko Jozic) and experienced players. We had an epidemic of fever and cold in the first leg. Three or four players didn't play and some played diminished,” he reviewed.

“I always call Bati (Batistuta) a play that goes hand in hand with the goalkeeper and has me alone to push it. He doesn't give it to me, counterattack and Colo-Colo's goal. Well, it was a fatality, then he scored a thousand goals. They beat us 3-1 in the most embarrassing match I ever lived on a court,” commented the author of the boquense tanto in Santiago. The meeting took place under a highly hostile climate, classic of the Libertadores of the 80s and 90s: “It seems to me that if there were there was a more peaceful climate and everything would have developed in normal terms, I think we should have won that match. It was an early final, that's where the champion came out because Colo-Colo beat Olimpia easily.”

Latorre lamented: “I was close, very close. We had a great team, we were undefeated champions of the Argentine championship. Six goals against nothing more and the most scoring forward. We were at the ideal point to win the Copa Libertadores.”

After passing through Fiorentina in Italy, Tenerife and Salamanca in Spain, the skilled striker who was champion of America with the National Team in Chile 91 returned to Xeneize, where he played from 96 to 98. His stay was marked by good performances and a famous phrase: “Boca is a cabaret”.

“I saved 80 percent and answered 20. It was very sanguine, I lived holding back. He answered when it exploded. You listened to everything everywhere that made you want to go out and clarify. I got well that day. I regret the misunderstanding, but there was a mole inside the campus that passed information to the press,” said the former playmaker.

He added: “That was the spirit of what I said. Not that Boca as a club was a cabaret, but that the team had one inside that transferred everything we talked about in the dressing room to journalists. I meant puterio and I said cabaret. Then it was given a connotation that the comment did not have. Now I understand the business of the press, taking it out of one context and putting it in another.”

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