Bronze Age - Right/Left Backs
Figueroa - "I didn't like it. I never liked that position. I was a midfielder. The truth is that to this day I don't understand how I ended up playing there... I also liked to go on the attack. I scored a lot of goals..."
"They called me the golden cotovelo. Cotovelo is elbow and they accused me of jumping and putting my elbows when I headed. And once on television, talking about that, I went to the screen and pointed with my finger saying: this area is my house and I decide who enters my house. Ha, ha. Even today they sell a shirt at the Inter's store where I appear as the cotovelo putting my elbow on an opponent".
One of the few merits of the former Chilean soccer player Elias Figueroa was to be an ambassador of soccer, a position that he received at the first Soccer Expo held in Sao Paulo, where the former best player of America was present together with players such as Franz Beckenbauer, Johan Cruyff, Teofilo Cubillas, Eusebio and Kevin Keegan. The select group forms the so-called club of "The Great Masters of Soccer", an organization that will promote the values ​​of sport and will go to the aid of children around the world to help them with their problems.
Figueroa, considered the best of all time in the country, was honored by the Brazilian government. On behalf of Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, the ambassador of that country in Chile, Joao Augusto de Medicis, honored Figueroa with the "Knight of Rio Branco" order, which is an award given only to highly relevant figures, whether national or foreign.
One of only two players to win South American Footballer of the Year 3 years in a row, Elias Figueroa is arguably Chiles greatest ever player and one of the finest from South America.
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Junior - Summer of 1984. Evening. The sun is setting and the Italians are getting ready to have dinner. Suddenly the voice of the flagship television newscast journalist: "Torino has just made official the purchase of the Brazilian champion Leo Junior..." The next day, in the middle of the afternoon, thousands of people block the traffic to greet the new purchase. Carnival breaks out, the atmosphere is euphoric. The Torino fans are getting ready to cheer the one who will be the driving force of the team for three years...
"Sometimes I find it hard to believe that I played the game professionally for top-level sides for 20 years. It seems like a lifetime."
"I was the last remaining member of that 1980s generation and so for me it was really special to play a part in winning the Brazilian Cup (in 1990) and particularly the Brazilian league title (in 1992)," says Junior, who was born in the Paraiba state capital of Joao Pessoa. "The latter title was probably the trophy that meant the most to me, because it helped me say a fond farewell (to Flamengo)."
But Junior was more than just a world-class footballer. His ample charm and generosity of spirit made a vital contribution to dressing-room harmony, while his famed ability to spin a yarn also remains intact.
"I am used to certain responsibilities. In Flamengo, in the Brazilian national team, in Turin I have always been a point of reference for my teammates. A question of character? Maybe. But I remain of the opinion that matches are won and lost by eleven."
