Gabriel Omar Batistuta, 55 years old, second last name scorer, the most international star in ‘The Battle of Stars’ against ALS which this week is co-organized by Pula Golf and the Son Servera Golf Club, proposes a different interview to MARCA. “But we don’t talk about football,” he suggested a couple of weeks ago. Then, once in situ, you agree to talk about any topic, but the rules were already arbitrated and are respected by the interviewer. He plays paddle tennis and golf, he has 15,000 heads of cattle in Santa Fe, 800 km. north of Buenos Aires. He also worked as a tennis player and polo player at an amateur level.
Ask. What is it about soccer that makes an Argentinian mortgage his house to go to a World Cup?
Answer. Ha ha ha. I honestly don’t know, but I imagine that the soccer player represents a lot of people. He achieved things that many people dream of. In Argentina, everyone plays soccer. Just as in the United States it is normal to have a golf club in the car, Argentina is a ball. There are arches. Goals wherever you look. Made with t-shirts, with bicycles… And everyone dreams of that.
I imagine that reaching a World Cup final and that team is representing your country moves many things that make people able to mortgage a house to go live that moment.
Q. If Maradona and Messi are gods, was Gabriel Omar Batistuta at least an apostle?
A. No, I don’t know, I have played something else. Mine was scoring goals and nothing more. They were much more. They made magic.
Q. Do you believe in God?
A. I believed a lot in God.
Q. What do you remember about your father when you were little?
A. Work. I work all the time. I remember a super responsible man.
Q. Did you manage to convey the same message to your children that you had? Your father?
A. Yes, I think so. I think so. But they were two different situations. I didn’t have anything. My father didn’t have anything either. And I had a lot. And well, it was difficult for me, but I think they have grown up with values and are good people, very good people.
I think my children have grown up with values and are good people.
Q. Is there anything more beautiful than a tango?
A. Ha, ha, ha. Yes, watch how they dance.
Q. Did you get to dance?
A. Yes, I tried like everyone else. But I’m not good at dancing.
Q. Did you cry because of heartbreak?
A. No. Many situations have hurt me, but the elderly who worked all their lives and did not get what they were looking for make me cry more. That does make me tear up.
Q. What is an asado for an Argentinian?
A. Friends, friendship… Yes, above all, friendship. When we meet a person, we say come home and have a barbecue.
Q. Should Fernet be as famous as Coca-Cola?
R. He is fine with how famous he is.
There are good people in Argentina who think it is worth much less than it is.
Q. Is an Argentine worth what he says he is worth?
A. Many. Yes, many are worth less and many are worth more. There are good people in Argentina who think it is worth much less than it is.
P. �Por qu� gana Mila?
A. He wins because people are tired of politics. Milei are the people who got tired of the story, the verse and precisely politics. We in Argentina didn’t get anything, nothing was achieved by talking and well, Milei arrived, determined, believed firmly in his idea and convinced.
Q. We are at a golf tournament. What do you find in this sport?
A. I find improvement all the time. I never end up happy, ever. If I play poorly or play less poorly, I have never gone home happy. It is the search for personal improvement.
Q. And the intimacy that perhaps you never had?
A. Also. Yes, I have also had a lot of intimacy until I was 18. I grew up in an intimate environment, at home you couldn’t talk about your neighbor. My father forbade me from telling gossip. It was because he precisely said “no one is sleeping with those people.” How can he know why he bought the car or why he fought with the woman. We had it prohibited. We are very respectful of a person’s privacy. And when I started playing soccer, everyone invaded me. So I had a pretty bad time.
Q. Do you remember the first day after soccer?
A. I felt a lot of peace, a lot of tranquility.
Q. How many journalists betrayed you?
A. Quite a few. But I have the gift of forgetting the bad things that were done to me and I couldn’t tell you how much and by whom. But I know they hurt me.
Mateu Alemany rules in ‘The Battle of Stars’
Mateu Alemany, Tolo Tous, president of the Balearic Federation; Raim P�rez-Hern�ndez and Juan Nadal form the leading team in ‘The Battle of Stars’, a charity tournament whose first day was played in Pula Golf. Today will have the outcome in Son Servera Golf. They take two points from the team led by Uli Stielike.
