LOS ANGELES – Where should I go now? Ricardo Ferretti? He will turn 66 next Monday. The rose of the compass seems to wither. And this footballer Marco Polo is left without expeditions. And his contract with the Tigers ends in May.
Seven league titles, runner-up in the Copa Libertadores, champion of Concacaf and the second end Club World Cup with Tigers, the time has come when Ricardo Ferretti It seems that he lowered the flags in Mexican football, where almost 43 years ago he learned the bitter side of homelessness.
There will be no revenge in Libertadores, and his bittersweet journey with the Mexican national team has a double blockade, despite the fact that he took the step Confederations Cup Russia 2017. Tuca You know what Gerardo Martino He is in charge until the 2026 World Cup.
It doesn’t mean you’re missing out on offers. He despised MLS and petty insinuations from Europe. And he is not seduced by a multi-million dollar adventure, but tasteless and tasteless by China or the oil paradises. The man so damaged Ferrari Rojo is the highest paid technician in Mexico.
His football mapping has been restricted. So now where Tuca? Or in his provocative and suburban language, where you do “caghajos”, Ferretti?
The temptations of LigaMx and Concacaf, has already put them as decorative objects in his resume. And that obsession that was Club World Cup, managing to make it to the finals at the expense of Palmeiras, leaves him in a separate niche in the history of Mexican football coaches, beyond the terrible meditations on whether he could, if he didn’t want to, or if he should have had I tried something else before. of Bayern Munich.
League champion with Chivas, Pumas and Tigers, and with minor titles with Toluca, once Ferretti He accepted that he received offers from Cruz Azul and America, but he always had the floor on his own and his schedule full. In 30 years he did not stop directing and was never fired. He decides when to leave.
His future has been in him for years, just not officially. He had been the absolute owner of destinies Tigers For years, he has guaranteed a place at the sports area’s decision-making table Cemex. President? Sports director? Honorary Vice President? He will decide how pompous his position will be and how generous his taxes will be.
For now, his contract expires in three months, with the last whistle of 2021. Guard1anes. There were negotiations. He and Tigers we are talking about its extension until 2023. But in Cemex They decided to clarify who should control the team. And entrepreneurs are in no hurry.
To renew the contract until 2023, Cemex pulled on his pants and delivered the specifications. For the first time, the relationship between Ferretti with his friend, partner, accomplice, confidant and executor, Inge Alejandro Rodriguez, showed peeling. The employer, the Board of Directors Tigers, considered that he received less than he gave. The balance has been broken.
1.- Cemex began to act as a football company. He turned off the tap to lose it. Ask what you say about Leo Fernandez and accepted the closure of Operation Carlos González because a commitment had already been made.
2.- To renew Tuca, Cemex I wanted another title, Guard1anes 2020 o la Concachampions. The coach went a little further. He finished second in the standings Club World Cup. In this way Ferretti he killed two tigers with a rifle, because they demand that the brand surpass internationally. He already did.
3.- The pandemic affected one of the projects Tigers. He had moved the sky, the sea and the earth to be invited to Spanish pre-season competitions, either to Teresa Herrera or Santiago Bernabeu. In the first, they participated once The Blue Cross Yes America, and the second was conquered by Puma of Hugo Sanchez.
On the other hand, if the negotiations between Tigers Yes TucaCould the Brazilian be seduced by the challenge of breaking the drought in the title? The Blue Cross? Ricardo Ferretti does not give up or gives up in the sports leadership of the team. Mark an era with America? nest Yes Machinery It would lead him to a situation of daily exhaustion of the press, which, at the age of 66, could hardly captivate him.
In the end, your success story doesn’t mean you don’t have unfinished business. Are. If you have decided to avoid them, to marginalize them, to ignore them, it is strictly your own decision and on which no one has applied.
1.- Basic forces. Despite graduating as a coach in Puma, once a strong career in Mexican football, Ferretti did not train any iconic player of Tigers, much less a generation of potential customers, despite its prolonged management in two different stages.
2.- Recognize in Bora Milutinovic Yes Miguel Mejia Baron to two of his mentors. However, despite his career as a striker since moving to Botafogo, he has rejected his commitment to aggressive, colorful, generous football. And I don’t know or I can’t, especially because of the years associated with it. Baron Mejia. And in Tigers has and had an arsenal to throw the opponent in the goal, if he wanted.
So now where Tuca. Or in their ugly language and for the nicest ones, where you do “caghajos”, Ferretti?
His career can be considered successful, especially with the anecdote he revealed in 2007 to Soccermanía magazine. He only needed $ 150 to send the devil to Mexican football and return to Brazil.
About Tuca to Soccermania which the Atlas, after descending to Second Division, told him he would not continue in location, and that her daisy had withered at the club. Worst of all, no one was interested in him.
Ferretti he says that without money, without a roof, without hot food, he slept two nights on the street, in front of the Brazilian Embassy. His capital was $ 350. The ticket to Rio de Janeiro cost $ 500. No one would lend him the money, no one trusted him with that $ 150.
“I slept on the benches for two nights in front of the Brazilian embassy (then on Avenida Reforma). Thank God it wasn’t cold or rain. If he had given me the ticket back to Brazil, I wouldn’t have been in Mexico for so many years “, Ferretti revealed for Soccermanía magazine, according to the mediotiempo.com portal.
The report shows that Ferretti was rescued from the street by Mario Tinajero, which leads him to Animal League, a famous Guadalajara tour for paying former professionals for their services. Farms would survive Tuca. “After the games came the best: beer, tequila and carnitas,” he recalled.
Finally, the proposal Puma through Baron Mejia. And the homeless for two days learned the most powerful lesson in life.
This explains what is his greatest courage and the greatest pleasure in life, revealed by himself:
1 .- “I get up … that the food is wasted.”
2.- Once in a Brazilian restaurant in Guadalajara, “Brasil 2000”, directed Chivas, with Ney White of Oliveira At present, I have educated this reporter on how to be a proper “fruitful” restaurant.
Eat light. Take a break. You’re eating again. You take another break … and so on ”. That meeting lasted almost three hours and it was possible to meet the other Ferretti, the one who can talk about literature, politics and love for Mexico, beyond painful passages, such as parking his Ferrari in a space for people with special abilities.
So life in Mexico is not bad for someone who lived in poverty for a few days in 1978, and 43 years later receives the medal as runner-up of the world club.