Global Courant 2023-04-28 05:58:59
San Pedro Sula, Honduras.
There were 26 soccer teams, 27 seasons, multiple great goals and unforgettable evenings of pure soccer that the last great ’10’ that the Honduran National Team had: Rambo de León.
The former Italian Serie A footballer has confirmed his final retirement from football in an interview with Diario La Prensa. The porteño has made the determination to give his full time to his Academy in Puerto Cortés, where he promises to polish the new jewels of national football.
At 43 years of age, the now coach says goodbye to professional soccer playing with Atlético Júnior de El Negrito, Yoro, of the Honduran Promotion League, which was his 26th club to his credit, thus being the Honduran soccer player with more teams to his sports credit.
“I already got bored… I got bored of training sessions with certain boring, sad coaches, with all due respect, some bad courts and honestly it’s difficult. There are many kids who suffer a lot from that and especially when they don’t have what we are doing here, an academic category, a process of certain years where certain concepts that you want to do with them”, confirms the former player.
“You have to have at least a full month with the guys because they don’t pick up on a lot of things. Certain trainers are such bad people. That envy and selfishness is complicated, especially when it comes to the Honduran himself. They are people who are taken away from football because they are not even there to give, they take away that joy with which one wants to train, ”says Rambo de León and the root of his decision to leave the fields.
Rambo, who made his professional debut in 1996 at the age of 16, was grateful to his last club, Atlético Júnior, who gave him the opportunity to expand his history as a soccer player and where he gave his last brushstrokes as a soccer player.
“Grateful to them, I always liked training to the fullest, giving my best and with joy, but there are coaches who do is kill your spirits, not mine, because I don’t give a damn about them, I nor do my children kill my spirits”, argued the ’10’.
“I have been happy since I have life and I wake up and more when I see my children and my wife, I am happy with life. This is about enjoying life and seeing how we humbly give our learning and knowledge from the heart, something that other former players do not want to do. We do our best for these kids so that they can grow up and leave, that is the purpose of the academy”.
HIS NEW FACE
What do you take away from your career?, we asked him. “I’m not keeping anything, I gave everything I learned, what they taught me, what I developed mentally, what I tried to give to football, to my teammates, to the coach, and I had fun, I gave everything from my heart. I proved to be better than many other World Cup players and of other nationalities, I showed that in Honduras there is still a lot of capacity”.
“There are people who count on us, not passing through our hands, unfortunately people outside doubt when they send a Honduran and ask who their coach was, so that is what we want, that the boys who pass through our hands know those people who have a weight of who trained them, it is very important and in football it is like that ”, warns León Dailey.
“It is not the same that Gabriel Milito, a legendary person, trains you as that you are trained by an unknown person who sends you to Europe. There the bars count a lot ”, he finished.
And it is not for nothing that many called him ‘the Rambo of the people’, in his goodbye to football he remembered the Honduran fans who always showed him their affection in every stadium he stepped on. He did not forget every applause or every encouragement they gave him.
“I gave everything to football, but you know what I’m left with. With the images of each Honduran who stayed up late, endured hunger, left their families, endured mosquitoes and ants for going to the stadium to applaud one, with those images I remember that they celebrated with all the love in the world and the next day they went to work with the greatest of enthusiasm, but you work being happy seeing your favorite players”, he affirms.
And he adds, “With that I stay, with the maximum expression that the catracho has of celebrating, hugging, even if we are fighting and you stink or you are stinking, but I still hug you because it is a beautiful goal, those are little things that soccer Honduran gives you”.
IT IS NOT CONSIDERED THE BEST ’10’ OF THE ‘H’
Despite clearly being one of the best ’10’ and free throw shooters in Honduras, Rambo de León was very cautious and when asked, responded. “No, I was simply a server who gave my best and dedicated myself to showing that I was better than many other emblematic World Cup players worldwide, I enjoyed telling them ‘I am Honduran, not Brazilian or Argentine, I am Honduran.’
Was that a source of pride for you? he was asked. “Of course, it is a pride for me. They told me ‘you are Brazilian, or Argentine, where are you from, ché’, I told them ‘I am Honduran, Central American’. With great pride.”
Nor did he say he was the best free throw kicker in the national arena. “No, one of the best yes, not the best. There have been so many other kickers here, an Amado Guevara who is still above me and above him is Anariba, a left-back who hit very well, you also have Nene Obando, Alex Pineda Chacón, Nahún Espinoza, I know why I come from that old school and I watched them since I was a child ”.
“There were others like Montuca Castro who over time specialized in hitting because she has a graveyard of bones from all those who went bankrupt (laughs), there are others above me and I have to respect them. What I did outside or where I did it, I always did it by making an effort and improving my punch. If you consider me one of the best, I am welcome, ”she said with great humility to the DIEZ microphones.
HE MISSED THE WORLD CUP
Undoubtedly, one of the things that Rambo de León had left to accomplish in his career as a player was to play an adult world championship with Honduras, although the former player himself assured that he did not have that disappointment, they were football and life things.
“Trust not. When I was a child I was excited. He would put me in front of the television, we had a black and white Goldstar in the house and when they sang the hymn he would stop me and sing, he would put my hand in a different way. I was always excited and imagined seeing the flag fly in a World Cup, then whether I played or not played, that is something extra that God can give me, but seeing our flag in a World Cup has been the best thing that has happened to me in my life. “, said.
HE CRIED WHEN REMEMBERING HIS DEBUT
“His goals against Guatemala in the United States come to mind, the one he scored against Colombia and Ecuador in San Pedro Sula and the one against Mexico at the Azteca, but which one do you prefer?” I asked him. “With Platense, the first goal I scored in my life in Siguatepeque. They make me want to cry. I remember that I was happy, I wanted to debut, I was only 16 years old.
“When the coach mentioned to me that I was going to start, I cried with happiness, I screamed and said ‘I’m going to fulfill my dream’. It was a beautiful moment, when I scored the goal it was something wonderful. I promised my mother that I was going to make my debut, it was something wonderful, not to mention when I played for the national team and I scored my first goal, that was something unique and when I had to be there and represent my country in the Under 20 World Cup it was beautiful ”, The former Reggina, Genoa and Parma player recalled.
Rambo de León could write a book with the lessons and anecdotes acquired with the ‘H’ on his chest, but some of them he will never forget. “Seeing the boys celebrate when they qualified for the World Cup, that was something very nice, seeing that those who were there made a lot of effort, it was nice, special, being in a World Cup is the best thing that can happen to you. Fight for your dreams with a lot of sacrifice, fulfill it because it’s nice to represent your own country and play with passion”.
—In the World Cup in South Africa, you came out in the first match against Chile and sang the National anthem—, we remind him. “I was next to ‘Pery’ Martínez, the deceased, and I told him ‘ugly, it’s the most beautiful thing that can touch us, to sing the anthem, to be here and see our flag fly’ and he told me ‘yes ugly, it’s the that I always dreamed of since I was a child and now that I’m here I don’t believe it’ and I told him to believe it was the most beautiful thing for our country, and ‘if you play, crazy, have fun, don’t think about the result because we have the capacity to beat him to whoever,’ I told him.
“I was always there for my teammates, I was never one of those who fought with someone or argued, we debated and everything, but because in football there has to be debate and certain things in order to learn, you from me and I from you, that’s The beauty of soccer is to discuss, soccer-wise, among your teammates”, said the now former Honduran soccer player.
