Arsenio

Two stones. That was a childhood goal Arsenio Iglesias in Arteixo. “Rag ball, two stones and run.” It was no longer necessary. They had nothing else. “I was born in 1930. My childhood was difficult,” he said. There was no drama in his story. His childhood is reminiscent of that of many Galicians: “Cows, going to the mountains to collect wood, picking apples from the neighbors…”. They played on the dirt road, and the narrowness spread the imagination. “It wasn’t that bad, it didn’t hurt even when you fell,” he said with a laugh. There were no complaints, even if you had to play without shoes. Much later, he admitted that this is why he sometimes stared as if hypnotized at the shiny football boots of one of his grandsons. Ways of life. From earth and asphalt; and with a carpet and corridor of champions. Back and forth. Everything went with dignity. With that bitter sweetness. With that sweet bitterness. Maybe because those bare feet never left the ground or the ball. Arsenio, from head to toe. With his way of obtaining daily bread, far from absolute concepts. For the theory of relativity, his. with his spirit ruralite and that Galician authentic, without ultra processing, with which he made a point like no other. Kudos to the villager. That’s how he left his mark. This is how he remembered the splendor of Superdépor: “They say that past water does not run the mill. True, but the water is what happened. And, somehow, it will be somewhere, even if it is far away. He was a quiet man in a story with almost biblical verses. At the helm of a team that died and rose again, a general deluge came crashing down on its head in the Cup final against Valencia. Others were thunder. he, that orballo. He calms down, he doesn’t keep silent. With his fine humor. Constantly. A technician with whom the best pipes and hats could arrive at press conferences. He always threw them to hit, never to kill. Like that time Julio Salinas, at the staff dinner Depor Immediately after the loss in the old Tartiere, he became the spokesperson for his teammates to ask the coach to enrich the humble lettuce salad they were served with some protein to sink their teeth into. “Sir, a little nice…”, he begged. “July, nice, it was nice to win in Oviedo,” answered the boss. When he was a child, he enjoyed family parties where meat, which was missing the rest of the year, was displayed on the tables. And willows. On top of all that, when that “horrible” orchestra, Satellites, played. “It was magnificent to listen to them. If I had never been a dancer,” he said. Yes I was. He had to dance with triumph and failure, and he knew from the first bar that they were both two great deceivers, as Rudyard Kipling wrote. Arsenio, or we are dancers.