Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Juggernauts

One of the world champion Uruguayans, “Perucho” Petrone, packed up and moved to Italy. The afternoon in 1931 when Petrone made his debut for Fiorentina, he scored eleven goals.

He did not last long there. He was the top scorer in the Italian championship and Fiorentina offered him everything, but Petrone tired quickly of the hurrahs of Fascism on the rise. Fed up and homesick, he went back to Montevideo where for a while he continued scoring his scorched-earth goals. He wasn’t yet thirty when he had to leave soccer for good. FIFA forced him out because he broke his contract with Fiorentina.

They say Petrone’s shot could knock down a wall. Who knows? One thing is for sure: it knocked out goalkeepers and broke through nets.

Meanwhile, on the other shore of the River Plate, the Argentine Bernabé Ferreyra was also shooting cannonballs with the fury of the possessed. Fans from every team went to see “The Wild Animal” start out deep, cut his way through the defense, and put the ball in the net and the keeper along with it.

Before and after each match and at halftime as well, they would play a tango over the loudspeakers composed in homage to Bernabé’s artillery barrages. In 1932 the newspaper Crítica offered a sizable prize to the goalkeeper who could stop him from scoring. One afternoon that year, Bernabé had to take off his shoes for a group of journalists to prove no iron bars were hidden in the toes.