Crítica
- WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN DEFEAT, SAYS NASAZZI
- IT WILL BE A MATCH OF DEFENSES, SAYS VACCARO
- The teams appear
On the day of the Uruguay–Argentina match at the South American Championship in Chile, Crítica printed statements from both captains. Uruguay's Nasazzi said his players were rested after their stay at Cauquenes, predicted a hard game won by a minimal margin, and said his team could not even think of defeat against its 'eternal and worthy rival'. Argentina's Vaccaro refused to make a forecast and called the sides evenly matched. He said two new men would not weaken his team and predicted that the defenses would decide the match. A running report then described the teams coming out, written in the present tense: a band played tangos and both national anthems, the Paraguayan referee Miguel Barba came on with Paraguayan players as linesmen, and the two captains exchanged flowers.
Translation
WE DO NOT BELIEVE IN DEFEAT, SAYS NASAZZI
…last cartridge and declaring that they are rested after their stay at Cauquenes, he added that the winner will emerge after a difficult encounter and will win by a minimal margin. He finished by saying: "Our eternal and worthy rival will be put to a very hard test and will surely have to make an all-out effort to win victory over our team, which cannot, of course, think of the bitterness of a defeat."
IT WILL BE A MATCH OF DEFENSES, SAYS VACCARO
— We transmit verbatim the statement that Vaccaro, captain of the Argentine side, made to us about this afternoon's match: "I can say nothing in advance. Any forecast is a gamble. Both sides have equal chances, since they are well-knit teams that play the same tactical game." My team is in excellent physical condition, and that is why I have full confidence in how it will perform this afternoon. Although we have two new men, I believe the players they replace will not be missed. My men are going out ready to firmly uphold the prestige of Argentine football. I believe the special feature of this afternoon's match will lie in the work of the defenses.
The teams appear
At this moment the band stationed on the field is playing the most popular tangos. A little later it strikes up the Argentine and Uruguayan anthems, drawing loud applause from the crowd. The Paraguayan referee, Miguel Barba, walks onto the pitch, assisted as linesmen by the Paraguayan players. The captain of the Uruguayan team, Nazza [?] presents a [?] of flowers ro [?] to the Argentine captain, Vaccaro. Vaccaro does the same, and applause is heard again.
Context
The standings and records behind the Uruguay–Argentina match of 24 October 1926
The 1926 South American Championship was a round robin in which each team played every other once, and every match was staged at the Estadio Sport de Ñuñoa in Santiago. Argentina came in as defending champions after winning the 1925 edition, while Uruguay had won five of the first nine championships. That history of trading titles is the background to Nasazzi calling Argentina 'our eternal and worthy rival'. When the two captains spoke to Crítica, half the matches had been played and Argentina led the table with four points, two ahead of Uruguay, Chile and Paraguay. Argentina had just beaten Paraguay 8–0, with four goals from Gabino Sosa, which helps explain Vaccaro's confidence in his team's condition. For Uruguay, a win was needed to draw level at the top.
How the match ended and how the captains' forecasts held up
Uruguay won the match that afternoon 2–0. RSSSF's record gives a half-time score of 1–0, goals by Borjas in the 22nd minute and Castro in the 73rd, a crowd of 15,000, and the Paraguayan Miguel Barba as referee. Barba is the same official whom Crítica's report shows walking onto the pitch. Nasazzi had forecast a hard match won by a minimal margin, and the real result was close to that. Vaccaro expected the defenses to decide the afternoon, and Argentina, who had just beaten Paraguay 8–0, failed to score. RSSSF's line-up places Conti beside Vaccaro in Argentina's half-back line, which fits the captain's remark about two new men, although the readable excerpts do not name them. The victory brought Uruguay level with Argentina at the top of the table, and Uruguay went on to win the championship for the sixth time by beating Paraguay 6–1 in their final match. The Crítica excerpts end with the pre-match ceremony, so they record what the captains expected, not the outcome.
José Nasazzi, the Uruguayan captain quoted on the page
José Nasazzi was a Uruguayan defender who played at right-back or centre-back. He won the South American Championship in 1923, 1924 and 1926, so the confident captain on this page was speaking between his earlier titles and the one the Santiago tournament would bring. Four years later, in 1930, he captained Uruguay to victory in the first FIFA World Cup. Crítica's report on the teams' entry names the Uruguayan captain who handed flowers to Vaccaro as 'Nazza [?]'. This is an OCR-damaged form, and because the same page quotes Nasazzi as Uruguay's captain, it almost certainly refers to him.
How Crítica reported football and news from abroad
Crítica, the paper directed by Natalio Botana, had long given sport a prominent place. From 15 August 1915 it added a second Sunday edition at seven in the evening, and it later launched a noon edition devoted mainly to sports. The historian Sylvia Saitta describes Crítica's football reports as long narratives broken up by small subheadings that marked the key moments of a match, placing readers at the ground and recording the crowd's reactions. The section headed 'Aparición de los equipos', with its tangos, anthems and applause, follows that pattern. The paper also had experience of reporting from abroad. Hugo Marini covered the South American Championship in Brazil in October 1922, and Crítica later became the first Argentine paper to send a writer abroad with a football team. Botana himself was president of the Asociación Argentina de Football from February to August 1926, only months before this tournament. Argentine papers of the period received foreign news by telegraph; El Litoral of Santa Fe, for example, ran dispatches from the Austral agency and its own correspondents on the day they arrived. The present-tense 'En estos momentos' and the phrase 'Transmitimos textualmente' point to dispatches telegraphed from Santiago as the match was starting, but the excerpts do not say whether they came from a Crítica envoy or a news agency.
Original
NO CREEMOS EN LA DERROTA HA DICHO NASAZZI
último cartucho y declarar que se hallan descansados, después de la estada que han hecho en Cauquenes, agregó que el vencedor surgirá después de un encuentro difícil y que ganará por mínima ventaja. Terminó diciendo: " Nuestro eterno y digno rival será sometido a una durísima prueba y seguramente tendrá que empeñarse a fondo para conseguir la victoria sobre nuestro equipo, que no puede, desde luego, pensar en los sinsabores de una derrota. "
SERA UN MATCH DE DEFENSA, HA DICHO VACCARO
- Transmitimos textualmente la declaración que nos hizo Vaccaro, capitán del cuadro argentino, referente al match de esta tarde: " Nada puedo adelantar. Todo pronóstico es aventurado. Iguales probabilidades tienen uno y otro cuadro, tratándose de equipos homogéneos que desarrollan igual táctica de juego. " Mi equipo se halla en excelentes condiciones físicas, por eso confío ampliamente en su actuación de esta tarde. No obstante tener dos hombres nuevos, creo que no se extrañarán los reemplazados. Mis hombres concurren dispuestos a dejar bien sentado el prestigio del football argentino. Creo que la característica especial del match de esta tarde residirá en la labor de las defensas.
Aparición de los equipos
En estos momentos la banda de música stiuada en el field, ejecuta los tangos más populares. Poco más tarde hace oir los acordes de los himnos argentino y uruguayo, provocando grandes aplausos entre el público Hace su entrada a la cancha el referee paraguayo, Miguel Barba, a quien secundan, como linesmen, loe jugadores paraguayos. El capitán del team uruguayo, Nazza [?] hace entrega de un [?] de flores ro [?] al capitán argentino, Vaccaro. Este hace lo mismo y vuelven a oirse aplausos.
Source: Source: Internet Archive / Biblioteca Nacional de la República Argentina