‘No Chilean has ever triumphed here’: the day Carlos Bilardo cut short the signing of Marcelo Salas at Boca Juniors

Marcelo Salas had some of the happiest years of his career in Argentina. The Matador arrived at River Plate in mid-1996, forever being remembered by fans for his goals and the titles he won. However, The story could have been very different if he had not met a coach who rejected him: Carlos Salvador Bilardo who will be 86 years old this Saturday.

The doctor He coached Boca Juniors that season. The Xeneizes had serious intentions of adding the Temuco native. But on condition that it is loaned. The man trained at the University of Chile wanted to be redeemed. And so it begins a back-and-forth story that ended with a powerful line that didn’t come to fruition.

“My representative arrives at that moment and tells me ‘ Marcelo there is an option for Boca Juniors. I had already been at the U for two or three years, it was mid-96 and I wanted to leave, I wanted to look for other options, try myself at another level of play and I wanted to leave “, Matador told Catenaccio Sport.

“The economic agreement was not there. I meet and they tell me let’s go on loan. I, with my representative by my side, say “no, I’m not coming with a loan.” Either they buy me or they don’t buy me. Because if I come on loan for three months and something happens to me, I will return to Chile and I will never leave again. Bilardo tells me ‘we train tomorrow at 10 o’clock’ and I tell him that I can’t train, that I haven’t signed a contract. “If tomorrow they bring me the contract and buy me, I will train tomorrow. But otherwise, no” said the former striker.

“They ask Bilardo, ‘What are we doing?’ We buy it or we don’t buy it. And there, Bilardo says no: “A Chilean has never succeeded here. “That’s the sentence.” , said the former striker. The truth is that Salas managed to succeed in Argentina, with 48 goals, 27 assists and five titles. “After a while, I met Macri and he said to me, in the Argentinian way: ‘Marcelo, you were the biggest pain in the ass I’ve ever had.’ I ask him why: ‘Because we didn’t buy from you'”, declared the third top scorer in the history of La Roja.

“In the end they did me a favor, because I arrived at River at a spectacular time, a great team. At that time, Boca was a big institution, as you want, but it was not at a big level, there were a lot of internal problems and also club problems. So the best thing that happened to me was to join a good team and a well-armed institution,” concluded the Matador in his story. His first goal on the other side of the Sierra was precisely in a Superclásico against Boca Juniors, in La Bombonera, after the millionaire team paid 3.2 million dollars. for your letter.

Decades later, in an interview with Sporty , Bilardo recognized the great level of Salas. “Historically, I have seen good players in Chile. I must have coincided as a player at a very good time, at the end of the sixties. I remember a lot about Alberto Quintano, a wonderful footballer. I don’t like talking about current affairs very much, I have the impression that only coaches can do that. “I can tell you about Marcelo Salas and Iván Zamorano, who were great players and who left Chile’s name very well,” he said, without referring to his 1996 refusal.