Diario La Nación
- The Uruguayan player Borjas
- THE SOUTH AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONGRESS MET LAST NIGHT
- Other details of the meeting
This Santiago daily of 26 October 1926, printed while the South American football championship was being played in the city, carried the three short items read here. One reported that René Borjas, Uruguay's centre-forward, was confined to bed after being badly hurt early in Sunday's match, was ruled out of the coming games and was due for an X-ray because his swollen ankle hid the extent of the injury. A second, from the South American football congress that met the night before, quoted the Uruguayan delegate Gómez accepting a postponement so that delegations could consult their associations, while urging that the matter be settled at this congress. A third noted that two military bands would attend, as at every match of the championship.
This edition translates three short excerpts from the 26 October 1926 page. No usable OCR existed, so they were transcribed from images of a skewed, bound volume whose edges are cut by the binding. The congress passage was read with low confidence and contains two illegible gaps, marked [?]. The readable text does not name the matter debated at the congress, and it says nothing about why military bands attended the matches.
Translation
The Uruguayan player Borjas
René Borjas, the Uruguayan centre-forward who was seriously injured a few minutes after the start of Sunday's match, is confined to bed, and his participation in the coming matches has been ruled out. An X-ray will be taken today, since the swelling of the ankle makes it impossible to establish the extent of the injury with precision.
THE SOUTH AMERICAN FOOTBALL CONGRESS MET LAST NIGHT
The Uruguayan delegate, Mr. Gómez, accepts the postponement so that the delegations may learn the official opinion of [?] the bodies they represent, but hopes that this matter will be settled at the present Congress, because it is a [?] matter of vital importance for the future of South American football.
Other details of the meeting
As at all the matches of the championship with which we are concerned, two military bands will be in attendance.
Context
Sunday 24 October: Uruguay's 2–0 win over Argentina
The "match del Domingo" in which, according to the paper, Borjas was hurt within minutes of kick-off was Uruguay's game against Argentina in Santiago on Sunday 24 October 1926. Uruguay won it 2–0, and the result brought them level on points with Argentina at the top of the round-robin table. The match records nonetheless list Borjas as the scorer of Uruguay's first goal, in the 22nd minute according to the English-language account and the 41st according to the Spanish-language one. The forecast that he would miss the coming matches is the paper's own assessment, made two days after the game and before the X-ray it mentions had been taken.
How Uruguay won the 1926 championship
Uruguay went on to win every one of their four matches. On 1 November Héctor Castro scored four goals in a 6–1 win over Paraguay, which gave Uruguay a fourth win in four games and their sixth South American title. Records differ over the moment the title was decided: the Spanish-language account states that Uruguay were already proclaimed champions without playing, once Chile and Argentina drew on 31 October. In either telling, Uruguay completed their campaign after the Sunday victory that this page reports, in the matches from which the paper said Borjas had been ruled out. The excerpt itself does not establish whether he did in fact miss them.
The South American Confederation and the Uruguayan delegate Gómez
The congress reported here was a meeting of the Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol, founded on 9 July 1916 and ratified at its first constitutional congress in Montevideo on 15 December that year. Its founder and first president was the Uruguayan journalist and politician Héctor Rivadavia Gómez, who had first proposed a South American football confederation. Reference lists of office-holders give him as the confederation's president from 1916 to 1936 and place him at the head of the Uruguayan Football Association in 1926. The excerpt names the Uruguayan delegate only as "señor Gómez", so the page does not establish that he was Rivadavia Gómez. The 1926 tournament had its own difficulties. A congress in Buenos Aires first awarded it to Brazil, although it later emerged that Chile's requests to host had been passed over. Hosting was then offered to Chile's federation on condition of prior admission to FIFA, and Brazil decided not to take part; the Spanish-language account says Brazil stayed away because of problems in its own confederation. Bolivia, a member since 1926, played in the championship for the first time. The readable passage does not name the matter Gómez called vital to the future of South American football.
Ñuñoa: the single ground for every match
Every match of the 1926 championship was played at one ground in Santiago, the Estadio Sport de Ñuñoa, called the Campos de Sports de Ñuñoa in Spanish-language records. The paper's note that two military bands would attend, as at all the championship's matches, therefore describes a fixed feature of the same ground over the course of the tournament, including the Uruguay–Argentina match in which Borjas was hurt. The records of the venue and results do not mention the bands, so their regular presence rests on the paper's own statement.
Original
El jugador uruguayo Borjas
René Borjas, el centre-forward uruguayo lesionado de consideración a los pocos minutos de empezar el match del Domingo, guarda cama, estando descartada su participación en los próximos partidos. Hoy le será hecha una radiografía, pues la hinchazón del tobillo impide establecer con exactitud la proporción del mal.
EL CONGRESO SURAMERICANO DE FOOTBALL SE REUNIO ANOCHE
El delegado uruguayo señor Gómez acepta el aplazamiento a objeto de que las delegaciones conozcan la opinión oficial d [?] las entidades que representan, pero espera que este asunto quede resuelto en el actual Congreso, porque se trata de un [?] sunto de vital importancia para el porvenir del football suramericano.
Otros detalles de la reunión
Como a todos los partidos del campeonato al que nos ocupa, concurrirán dos bandas militares.
Source: Source: Internet Archive