Door! shouted coach Jorge Zapata, like someone preparing a scolding. “If you’re going to cry, go home, the character is on the court,” he told her, and gustavo door I didn’t know what to do, besides crying. Back then, he was short and chubby, and if he had any temper, he didn’t get it. He managed to wipe away his tears and left the field, without imagining that this scolding would mark him. It is that no footballer likes to be taken out. And less when 12 minutes go…
It is hard to believe that that Puerta from the past, the chubby guy who broke down crying, was going to become a player with a character greater than the pitch. Since then, Puerta has been made of steel. And he has shown it as captain of the Colombia selection that ends today South American Sub-20cin quotas to the World Cup in Indonesia and the Pan American Games in Chile.
Until recently, Puerta towards his career in the B, in the bogota fc. He is now the best player in the U-20 National Team. He is the one who commands, the one who screams, and also kicks as if he had a catapult on his right leg. Puerta, at the age of 19, was signed by Bayer Leverkusen, from Germany, and transferred to second-class Nuremberg. Life, after the South American, will turn around. But we already know that he has plenty of character.
Gate’s story
When Jorge Zapata speaks, his voice fills with pride. These days this ex-soccer player attends more interviews than in his time as a left back. He was the one who had Gustavo in a key stage of his training, from the age of 15, in the club Talentos GV (of the former player gustavo victoria) in Tuluá, there he polished it and taught him that character. The first day she saw him, she had to get all the sincerity out of him, because Puerta was nothing like what he is today. What’s more, they told Jorge, “nothing is going to happen with that boy, he is very chubby”.
“I saw him for 20 minutes and I realized, then I was frank: I told them that he had good technique, but that he was a long way from real competition, that he was heavy, that he had to improve his dynamics, decision-making, he had many shortcomings he told the Puertas.
There began his task. And it was not easy. Jorge recounts that one day Puerta’s father arrived after a game with lunch: potato, cassava, rice and a liter and a half of soda. Jorge almost exploded: “No, no, no, don’t give me that. Door, you can’t drink soda!”. And Puerta understood quickly. She learned to eat what she actually served her. He became dedicated to the gym, if you were there he was the baddest on the team -as Jorge says-, after a short time he was the best of all.
Gustavo Puerta (front, center) in the GV Talents team.
In those days we lived in a club home and I was still midfielder 10, but not by much. Jorge had other planes: “Door!”, he called it: “The midfielder 10 is running out, it’s not 10, it’s round trip, the one who goes and scores goals and passes the goal, and the one who is in his area defending” he told him, and today he is proud to see what he did without.
Of course, there were jobs and scolding. In a match, Jorge, who was in the stands due to a suspension, despaired when he saw Puerta trotting the field, as if without desire, as if without blood, and they were losing 1-0. Jorge yelled, waved his hands, “don’t trot me!”, and Puerta didn’t know it. Jorge came down hysterical, grabbed him by the hand, squeezed him: “Are you scared? Tell me and I’ll take you out, and you go home, stop walking, brother…”. That time Puerta did not cry, his response was reactive: after 3 minutes he scored a goal, after 4 he scored an assist, at 7 he scored another… His team won 6-1… “We created character for him, he became a player who did not is intimidated”.
With the passing of the games, Puerta assumed his position. He lost weight, gained physical strength, and perfected the art of finishing. He was already another player. In a match against Nacional in Medellín, Puerta grew up, asked for the ball, commanded, and Jorge saw him fighting with the big men from Nacional, the 1.91m tall, and he won the ball from them, so Jorge raised his hands to the mouth like someone who wants to stop an exclamation and cannot: “wuau!”.
The house for parents
“With my first salary in Germany I am going to give you the house”, Gustavo Puerta told his parents when the transfer to Germany was finalized, and his parents were filled with emotion. “It’s just that he’s a very good boy,” says his father, Don Gustavo, and his voice is proud and affectionate. “His dream of him was to go to Europe and it was given to him, and the most important thing is that he is happy, and in the family he has us the same”, he says.
The Puertas live in La Victoria, in Valle del Cauca, where Gustavo was born, a small town with its church, its low houses, its narrow streets. The Puerta house is in the Occidental neighborhood, one block from the Alejandro Zúñiga stadium, where Gustavo threw his first balls. The house is one story, the rooms, living room, kitchen, and a little store where Don Gustavo sells his rice, his oil, “el mecate”, as he says.
Gustavo grew up with his mother, Mrs. Virgelina, and with two sisters, Mónica, the eldest; Maria del Mar, the youngest. Gustavo is the one in the middle. His story began at the Supercampeones soccer school, when he thought he wanted to be a soccer player. Afterwards there was no time to study, and that was very good, says his father, “the first or second in the class” at the Manuel Antonio Bonilla school: “He missed tenth and eleven, he has it pending, and now , study English,” he says.
From left to right. Gustavo Puerta father, Virgelina Molano (mother), Gustavo Puerta, Mónica Puerta and María Puerta (sisters).
“Soon after we saw that he made a difference in the category, so we promoted him to the first team.
De Talento GV arrived in the capital. Puerta appeared with several teammates at Bogotá FC and was the only one left for the under-20 team. “Soon after we saw that he made a difference in the category, so we promoted him to the first team. This helped him to consolidate himself as the exceptional athlete and leader that he is today”, affirms Ferney Perdomo, president of the club.
In Bogotá he played 34 games in B. He scored 3 goals. He was first called up to the Selection of DT Arturo Reyes. Then to that of Héctor Cárdenas. He played the Tournoi Maurice Revello tournament, in France, where he was in 5 games and scored one goal. He was even summoned by Néstor Lorenzo to a microcycle of the senior team, he being the only player from the second division in that call. Until he arrived his South American.
gate glory
The teacher Jorge spoke with Puerta before the game against Brazil in the South American group stage and told him: “You’re doing well, but you have to hit the goal more, kick, kick, Puerta”, and the phrase kept bouncing around, or that Jorge thinks, because in that game Puerta was encouraged and finished off and scored a Goal to Brazil. And if the Germans were not yet decided, there they were surrendered.
Puerta scored another great goal against Paraguay, to establish himself. Then, last Thursday, he missed a penalty against Brazil, football stuff, says the wisdom of this game. But Puerta did not collapse, he kept giving himself, his sacrifice, his push.
“He is a poised boy, this young woman. They covered it up, but he kept putting in, he never went down… In this South American game he has done very well, he scored very nice goals, he played very well,” says his father, and after a silence, release something as if stuck: “Look where the one they called chubby goes.”
Puerta is already packing his bags to go to Germany this week, and if he is crying now it is because he fulfilled his dreams and no one is going to scold him anymore: his character is already made.
PAUL ROMERO
Editor of EL TIEMPO
@PabloRomeroET
