Enrique Macaya Márquez - Argentine journalist

Enrique Macaya Márquez - the reporter who witnessed 15 world cups: “Messi lacks leadership”. The Argentine started his career in Sweden in 1958, and he is currently the reporter who visited the largest number of world championships. Football live history, and at his 83 he is going to visit World Cup 2018 in Russia.

Enrique Macaya Márquez in one of the Buenos Aires bars, after the interview with EL PAÍS.

The FIFA registries confirm that the Argentine Enrique Macaya Márquez (born in 1934 in Buenos Aires) is the journalist who visited the maximum number of World Cups. He started his career 60 years ago, in Sweden in 1958, and didn’t miss any championship: the World Cup in Russia 2018 will be his 16th consecutive tournament. “I had the equal number of world cups with the Scotch or Irish reporter, I don’t remember exactly, however he didn’t visit two last world championships”, - says Macaya at his 83 years. “I’m going to work in Russia on behalf of TV Pública (Argentine TV channel) but I managed to witness so many world cups as I tried to achieve my own goals. I worked on the radio and TV channels, and developed different techniques for the work in the world cups”, -

says Enrique sitting in the elegant bar in Buenos Aires. Nowadays, he is the most respected sport journalist in Argentina. Obviously, his colleagues can’t pretend to break this record, consequently one may put a question whether there’s at least one coach or fan who visited more championships than Macaya Márquez, or he is actually the person who witnessed that awesome event more times than anyone. Let’s remind that millions of people focus their attention on the world cup every four years.

Question. How was the world cup 60 years ago?

Answer. It was something strange, undiscovered and mysterious. I had no idea how to get to Sweden but the radio station where I worked managed to find for me a ticket from the Brazil company. I went there on DC-7 that stopped in different cities to fuel - Porto Alegre, San Pablo, Rio de Janeiro and Dakar. The plane arrived to Europe via Italia. It was a real adventure as the plane was to arrive in Hamburg but finally landed in Frankfurt. We rented a car and moved to Sweden directly through Denmark. It was a miracle that we reached Malmo. We didn’t even know what was the right name of this city where the national team of Argentina stayed.

Q. How was the broadcast in Sweden in 1958?

"We broadcast via the one-way line, and we didn’t even know whether we were on air".

The technician with special device accompanied us all the time, he connected the microphones but we couldn’t understand if everything worked properly. We had to start the broadcast at 3 p.m. (Argentine time), and 10 seconds before we began to count: 10, 9, 8 etc. Then, we started to talk although we didn’t know if anybody heard us. It seemed like flying blind.

Q. You had close friendly relations with Alfredo di Stefano who always faced troubles in the world cups. Was he worried about it?

A. It’s difficult to say whether it bothered him. Alfredo was quite a moderated and strange person. He didn’t like to talk. I remember at that times I sold newspapers near his house, and he (River Plate football player) constantly read them. We trusted each other. He was a real legend in our district. Alfredo was a strange person but at the same time he was an excellent high-level player.

Q. Recently, you have published the book “My World Cups” (publishing house Planeta) where you state that the best world cups team was the one that didn’t win the first trophy - Holland 1974.

"Holland '74 was the best national team I have ever seen".

A. It was a fantastic team nobody could compete. Great combinations that made us shout “Eureka”. I haven’t seen anything similar. The team included players from Feyenoord and Ajax, they constantly quarreled and preferred different styles of the game. The coach of the national team, Rinus Michel put them all together and said: “You will be selected to the world cup. And you too. 50/50. If you don’t like it just go away”.

Q. What was the best performance you can remember?

A. Unfortunately, it was the match against Argentina. They scored four goals. It was excellent football, excellent technique, excellent speed (main technique rival) and positional displacement that required a great concentration. Everybody played at his position so that there were no empty places on the field. The defense actions were wonderful. After that match, my Argentine colleague Osvaldo Ardizone told me: “Enrique, we need to invent new words. What we have just seen is something awesome and completely new. We have never seen anything similar before’.

Q. You said Cruyff, Maradona, Pele and di Stefano played better than Messi.

"Di Stefano was a strange person. Great high-level football player".

A. It is just my opinion. I don’t mean world cups, on the contrary, the participation in the World Cup final shows the value of the player (Messi was world vice-champion in 2014). It is strange. You take the silver medal in the world cup, and people say it’s failure. Incredible. I don’t know whether is a personal assessment or wrong perception, however Messi lacks leadership compared to the players mentioned above. The coach of Argentina in Brazil 2014 Alejandro Sabella gave him the captain’s armband so that Messi could lead the team in that match. Nevertheless, Javier Mascherano was the player who led the team. It’s the question of character. Leader is the person who makes everything for the team but remains strong as a personality.

Q. As Pele in 1970 or Maradona in 1986?

A. I remember Pele in 1958, and for me it was the best championship of Pele. Brazilians were just Brazilians at the background of Pele despite the highest level of all national team players. Pele fought, he fought like a lion, he wasn’t modest. He was attacked by one defensor, and coped with two.

Q. Political instability in Argentina had a great influence on the world cup. Different things happened. Just remember England 1966 when democracy was substituted by dictatorship.

A. I knew about the coup when I left Buenos Aires. At that times, I started to work on the 7th Channel (state channel). And I wasn’t alone. There were many reporters in the sport department. When I came back the office was empty. Everyone was fired.

"Best Pele championship was in 1958. He was extremely active, and showed his best game.".

Q. During the world cup 1978 when Argentina dictatorship ruled in the country, you were forbidden to criticize your national team?

A. The government didn’t allow us to say anything bad about our national team as it was perceived as undermining sport prestige of the country. However, I remember we held the interview with Cesar Menotti (coach of the Argentine national team). He presented us the list of his assistants, and we slightly criticized it. We criticized his choice, and that news appeared on the channel. There were premises for the negative consequences, however we didn’t get into troubles.

Q. You also said that during the training session of the national team in Buenos Aires in 1978 you heard shots, and the foreign journalist shouted “They are killing people!”.

A. It was the journalist from Holland. I talked to him, and suddenly I heard shots from the shooters club that was situated in front of the River stadium. We heard Bang, Bang! He told me: “They are killing people!”. I answered it was impossible - How could they kill people? In fact, they (foreign reporters) had much more information than we got. We didn’t know anything about tortures and imprisonments. They were aware about many things. They came to Argentina for their precautions. Football wasn’t the only one thing they were interested in. They also wanted to see the state coup.

Q. In many modern sport TV shows, we can observe a lot of passionate guests. Have you ever wanted to break the table or shout at the host?

A. No.

Source: EL PAÍS