That Hug

An image can describe things better than a million words. And it’s precisely an image what made me write this. Or more like a series of images, that would make anyone’s heart stop for a minute, especially in this times when another World Cup is being held.

Together, this pictures constitute an incredible mix of historic witness, artistic work, and naked humanity, and this has won “El abrazo del alma” (as this series of photographs have been named) many awards. Roughly translated it means “The Hug from the Soul” and just yesterday it was their 32nd anniversary.

32 years ago, yesterday, Argentina won its first ever World Cup, in 1978. With a chaotic background of the most bloody military regime South America has ever seen; fear, ignorance, passion, anxiousness, and loads of other feelings only people who lived it can express, Argentina was achieving the national dream, a tiny little bit of fake fresh air our suffocated society needed to stay alive for a bit longer.

Here I leave you the impressive shots and hope you like them. Below, there’s the short story behind them.

25th June 1978. River Plate’s football stadium. Argentina has just become World Champion for the first time. Seconds after the referee calls the end of the match.

Tarantini, one of the Argentinean players lets himself fall on the pitch and starts crying. Fillol, the goalkeeper, goes up to him to share the same feeling and kneels next to him to put their arms around each other.

A young fan whom had been hiding for an hour before the end of the match, comes running towards them. He wants to share this glorious moment with his idols. They’ll never be so close to him again, and only God knows how long will it take for these circumstances to repeat themselves.

But he’s got no arms.

He himself recalls it: “I saw the players right there, so close to me…they held each other, so I had to stop. And right then the sleeves of my blazer went forward and rested on both their backs. That’s when Alfieri took the picture and it looks as if the three of us were holding”

Victor Nicolás Dell’Aquilla was 22 at that time, and he had lost his arms during his childhood after an accident with an electrical post.

Pictures by Ricardo Alfieri (Senior) for the classical Argentinean sports magazine “El Gráfico”.