Tema Clausura 2017 | La Opinión

500 years have passed since Hernán Cortés, the man who conquered Mexico, arrived to the “country” and founded Veracruz. The fact that the “conquistador” first set foot in Veracruz feels like an ominous augury of the future. The history of Veracruz in the 21st century has been stained by violence and corruption. Just in 2019, 1,429 have been officially murdered in Veracruz, while it's not uncommon for authorities to find clandestine graves with up to 300 people buried. The state was also in the eye of the hurricane when former governor, Javier Duarte, allegedly siphoned at least 1,508,605,770 dollars of public money into a series of shell companies. English readers, if you ever see this woman, PLEASE, at least, spit at her. She’s currently living in London with public money, while hospitals in Veracruz gave water as a treatment to children with cancer, because her husband stole the funds for medical care. The current state governor was also accused for being part of a pedophile ring by a reputable journalist.
What’s the point of all this political talk when this should be about a football club? In my opinion, the disastrous state of the football club is just a reflection of the society that surrounds it.
Back to football. Club Deportivo Veracruz was founded in 1943. In the 1945-1946 and 1949-1950 seasons they won their only league titles, commanded by their star player Luis “Pirata” Fuente”, the team’s stadium is now named after him. Following the championships, the team was dismantled by Tampico Madero and got relegated. Just two years after the championship, in 1952, the club was disbanded. In 1960 the club got revived by a group of supporters and that is pretty much the history of Veracruz. A yo-yo team that constantly got promoted-relegated, disappeared-reappeared. The brightest moment in Veracruz’s history since Luis “Pirata” Fuente, was probably when mexican football idol, Cuauhtémoc Blanco, took the club to the top of the league in 2004 during his brief six month stint at Veracruz, the “Red Sharks” were eventually eliminated in the first playoff match against U.N.A.M.
The history of C.D. Veracruz kept repeating itself. The club was relegated for the fourth time in 2008 and disaffiliated from the league in 2011. Despite being disaffiliated, Veracruz was back in the competition the next tournament in second division, because they “fused” with Albinegros de Orizaba (considered by some the first football club in Mexico), however, they played in Veracruz’s stadium, kept the Veracruz logo and jerseys.
In the 2012-2013 season Veracruz failed to gain promotion, after losing in the quarter finals against Necaxa in the Torneo Clausura 2013. However Veracruz actually got promoted. How could that happen? Well, the owners of Veracruz bought La Piedad, the team that rightfully won promotion. The 2012-2013 season was actually very strange season because the team that got relegated, Queretaro, bought Jaguares. While Jaguares bought San Luis. That way, the team that was meant to be relegated stayed in first division, while the team that got promoted, got relegated to third division. And San Luis, a team that was free from relegation, disappeared. Mexican football in a nutshell.
From 2013 to 2017 Veracruz managed to stay in the top flight with mediocre performances, thanks to an experienced manager (Carlos Reinoso), a couple of great players (Melitón Hernández and Julio Furch) and, mostly, teams that proved to be worse than Veracruz. In those four years, Veracruz only achieved two qualifications to the playoffs (that means they finished in the top 8). While the “Tiburones Rojos” managed to get in the bottom two positions four times (mexican league has two tournaments each season).
After the 2016-2017 season, Veracruz was a disaster and the favourite to get relegated. Goalscorer Julio Furch was sold, while goalkeeper Melitón lost all his confidence and manager Carlos Reinoso had to step down because of health problems. The team finished the first tournament in the penultimate position of the league but were glimpsed for relegation in the next tournament.
However, Veracruz hired experienced manager Memo Vazquez, who won had previously won a championship with a VERY mediocre U.N.A.M. team, to save the season. And it worked, in part thanks to manager Vázquez but mostly because Lobos BUAP achieved one of the worst performances in the history of the league in that tournament.
For the 2018-2019 season rumors said the club owed the manager, players and staff months of worth of salary. The rumors also claimed coach Vazquez was resigning, Veracruz was going to be unable to register new players and that the squad was unwilling to take part of the preseason without payments. Despite everything, owner Fidel Kuri seemed to reach some sort of agreement with everyone and Veracruz brought in 28 players and let go 35 players. Mostly loans and free transfers. This is common business for mexican clubs that don’t have huge companies backing them (like America-Televisa, Tigres-Cemex, Monterrey-Femsa, Cruz Azul-Cruz Azul, to name a few). Bringing in a whole new team is a terrible idea but it’s an even worse idea when you do it with players other teams consider disposable.
In the first three games Veracruz lost two and tied one. The game against Puebla was crucial for their aspirations to stay in the top flight because Puebla was also a weak team fighting to avoid relegation. It still seemed like a miracle if Veracruz could win. But the miracle actually happened, a goal in the 83rd minute to tie the game and the winning goal in the 84th minute gave Veracruz 3 points no one could believe. Veracruz actually seemed to have a mild chance of staying in first division despite the terrible squad. However, just a few days after the win, coach Vázquez was surprisingly fired.
Unemployed coach Vazquez then declared to the press that he signed a “fake contract” with Veracruz that stated he earned much less than he did (this is common practice for most mexican companies in order to pay less taxes). The problem with the fake contract was that owner Fidel Kuri was then unwilling to pay what he had he owed Vazquez as a settlement. How did Fidel Kuri answer this? First he hired Juvenal Olmos, a chilean pundit-“manager” who hadn’t managed a team in 11 years. Then he took a drunkenly interview where he declared “the boys coached themselves, we won because we got lucky, because of the players, not the coach” and said “Juvenal will change the face of the team, he’s going to get out of this, you’ll see”, he then proceeded to attack Vázquez directly by calling him a “mandilón” -that means a man that is dominated by his wife-. To top his drunken interview, he later declared he was going to travel to Italy “with Memo Vázquez’s money”.
You would think Fidel Kuri is just some sort of corrupt businessman, but that guy is actually a politician in Veracruz, who supposedly also owns some sort of businesses. In 2016 Fidel Kuri tried to beat up Edgardo Codesal, the president of the referees association. He was suspended from all football activities for one year. He embodies everything wrong in mexican football and culture.
Back to the 2018-2019 season, Juvenal was unable to “get them out of that” and was fired at the end of the tournament after five losses and two draws. Kuri and Veracruz were then, somehow, able to sign manager Robert Dante Siboldi, who had just recently won the championship with Santos six months before. Siboldi made the team look better but was still unable to win. After 11 games, Veracruz was officially relegated. With a record of 10 defeats, 4 draws and a 9-2 disaster against Pachuca, Siboldi resigned. The “Red Sharks” were the third team to finish a tournament without a single win, second team to achieve it under the current format.
To make matters even more pathetic, Veracruz was deducted six points because they had a 244,500 dollar debt with Montevideo Wanderers for the transfer of Matías Santos in 2017. Considering the team had only won four points, “los Tiburones Rojos” actually finished the season with a -2 point difference.
The future of the club was uncertain. The league established that teams that got relegated were able to pay a 6 million dollar fee in order to stay in first division, this was supposedly a measure to expand the league to 20 teams. Lobos did it a year before and while it seemed logical for Veracruz to pay, no one thought it would be possible considering the “Red Sharks” owed months of salary to players and staff.
Again Fidel Kuri, somehow, reached an agreement with everyone and apparently payed all the debts he had with players and staff. So he then proceeded to pay the six million dollar fee to keep Veracruz in the top flight of mexican football. Kuri’s magic didn’t end there, because he was also able to convince the extremely experienced manager Enrique Meza to coach the team.
Veracruz added 17 players to the squad and the 2019-2020 season started just as you would expect. Even with someone like Enrique Meza, Veracruz was unable to win. After six matches, two draws and four defeats (one 7-0, another 0-5), Meza resigned for the first time in his career. By that time, Veracruz already held the record for the longest winless streak in the history of mexican football with 33 winless games and a complete calendar year without a victory. They were now competing for the world record with bulgarian side Chernomorets Burgas, a team that achieved a 43 games winless streak.
The club then signed manager Enrique López Zarza, who doesn’t have a great managerial experience, nevertheless, he’s a total man of football, with a very long career inside the pitch. He undoubtedly made the team better, even when the players were, yet again, owed months of salary. Rumors said some of the Veracruz staff was living inside the stadium, while older players had to loan money to younger players just to be able to pay the rent and eat. Guided by López Zarza, Veracruz almost won a game against Toluca, only to be tied in the 90th minute. A week later, Veracruz was also about to win against Leon but the game got tied in the 86th minute. The next game was against the richest and most powerful team in the league, Tigres.
The situation with debts was getting way out of hand and the players finally decided to do something about it. During the whole week before the game, players declared they would not play if the debt wasn’t covered. Some teams declared they would stop the league in support of their companions, while other teams embarrassingly didn’t show any support for the cause. The league declared that if the Veracruz squad didn’t present themselves to the match, they would be automatically be relegated.
D-day arrived and outside of talks and speculations, everything seemed like normal match day. A kid gave the ball to the referee, the league anthem, the handshaking protocol. Did the debt get paid before the match? Veracruz took the kickoff and sent the ball to the goalkeeper. After this, both teams stood still for a minute. After a minute passed, a Tigres player pressured goalkeeper Sebastián Jurado, who kicked the ball away. Tigres began to play the match, while the “Red Sharks” stood still. Tigres defender, Luis “Chaka” Rodríguez, decided to make a cheeky lob shot almost from midfield and scored. Veracruz players again took the kickoff and sent the ball to the goalkeeper, who proceeded to kick the ball away. In the third minute, Andre Pierre Gignac took a shot from a quarter of the field and scored again. After this, the match proceed normally, Veracruz players seemed to be specially fired up by the attitude of Tigres players, who scored when they were standing still. The game ended 1-3 in favour of “the tigers”, in what was considered by most football fans as a disgusting display of companionship. What did Veracruz owner Fidel Kuri think about the protest? He shamelessly said “it would’ve been better if Veracruz was just relegated”.
Another week passed and Veracruz was defeated yet again, this time 2-0 by Tijuana. The “Tiburones Rojos” had four matches ahead of them before finishing another tournament without a single victory. If they didn’t win the next match against Puebla, their chances of winning a match were extremely low because the remaining games were against strong teams (America, Monterrey and Chivas). They were just two matches away from equalling the world record for longest winless streak.
41 games and 430 days after their last victory, Veracruz was able to win again, against the same rival, Puebla. Colin Kazim-Richards scored the only goal of the match and the “red sharks” proceeded to drop back and waste time in order to avoid the dubious record of longest winless streak in professional football history. Promising goalkeeper, Sebastián Jurado, finished in tears after he won his first professional match in 18 league games, he actually got called to the national team before he could win a game. “Los Tiburones Rojos” finished the season with three more defeats.
When the tournament ended, team owners in the league gathered to decide the future of Veracruz in a meeting were Fidel Kuri was banned, they actually put “traps” in the FA’s facilities so he couldn’t go inside with his helicopter. For the first time in probably a decade, the FA made a wise decision and disenrolled Veracruz from the league. The Veracruz squad was apparently paid all their debts with an emergency fund owners have to pay in order to be part of the league.
In my opinion the whole situation is just a reflection of mexican football and society. I think that’s also the reason why the mexican national team has never been able to qualify to the quarter finals of a world cup outside of Mexico, despite having a country with 120 million people, most of which are crazy for football, and being the fifth team with most appearances in the cup, just behind Brazil, Germany, Argentina and Italy. In Mexico football is ONLY seen as entertainment and business, rarely does anyone actually care about the social and cultural benefits football can bring to the country. I was shocked when I learned in 2012 that people in Germany actually attend football matches in the third division, while in Mexico a team that drops to the second division is usually doomed to die.
Tl;dr A mexican football club achieved a winless streak of 41 games and 430 days, while staying in the top flight of mexican football, in a story full of debts, corruption, ridiculous rules and very poor management.