SANTIAGO DEL ESTERO (Special Envoy). – The noise is deafening. No matter how loud the fans scream students at the time of the award to the team that had just been declared champion of the Clausura 2025, contrary to all the predictions that existed before the playoffs. The 13,500 Pincha fans sing the same thing with all their energy, but paradoxically the scene seems typical of a video whose sound was present muted.
They open their mouths as wide as possible and demand their throats until their vocal cords stop tearing, on an evening they have already spent celebrating Guido Carrillo’s agonizing equalizer, in stoppage time and the climax of the penalty shootout that resulted in a victory (5-4) against Racing. They scream “Chiqui Tapa button!/Chiqui Tapia button!/ You are a son of a bitch, the mother who gave birth to you! But what is heard as the president of the Argentine Football Federation is insulted is a musical curtain call played at maximum volume.
This instrumental version, which catches the ear, expands and echoes on the modern rooftops of the stadium, is also interspersed with the song by the organization. How can I forget. So between epic and hit The authentic decadents, Claudio Tapia hangs up the medals to the players and members of the coaching staff whose club is now their main enemy.
Eduardo Dominguezthe coach who, for the fourth time since his time at Estudiantes, joins the stands’ songbook “Give him the champion,” He will speak wordlessly during the awards ceremony. As the fans vent their anger in Tapia, although it seems like a pantomime to those present as the music keeps rising and rising, Domínguez suppresses every smile and every satisfied grimace as he stands in front of the AFA president. Almost without making eye contact, he performs the handshake protocol and receives the medal for winning another title.
Tapia is unimpressed. With a smile as wide as a toothpaste commercial, he continues to honor the champions, who before this ceremony spontaneously set up a hall of honor to applaud the Racing players and coaching staff who left this province with the disappointment of not having crowned a year of great achievements with another title (they won the Cup Winners’ Cup in February).
When constructing stories that create or reinforce a legacy, Estudiantes will remember its current protagonists the hall masters. This act of rejection of the title awarded to Rosario Central strengthened the team, which refused to follow the coercive protocol established by the AFA because it interpreted it as something else: the pursuit of public humiliation.
“The year 2026 awaits you!! Take good care of yourself, multicolored beret. Now you must comply with the regulations set by the governing body, the Argentine Football Association.” had written Pablo Tovigginothe all-powerful treasurer of the AFA and Tapia’s right-hand man, in a message that combined a threat to the future with joy at a possible scene of subjugation by the Pincha team.
“The hallway thing was a thought we had within us and we decided to express it. We didn’t make a statement after that because that was the end of it for us. Let others continue to talk about it. This is a club that always strengthens itself and feeds on adverse things or situations that many do not believe in. “It made us stronger”he admitted Leandro González Pirez, who arrived at Estudiantes this year, about the positive impulse generated by the failed attempt behind closed doors sobering the AFA and the disciplinary tribunal.
After the awards ceremony the one who protected Tapia from public rejection with such sublime epic music and also through Los DecadentesThe footballers began to offer the cup to the people. In this context, with the champion’s cup, they approached the parquet in the lower west, where was Juan Sebastián Verón, the president, suspended from his managerial duties for a semester due to the… Backing to the headquarters.
“I am not a dryneck, I am a soldier of the witch”the crowd and audience joined in the chorus as the former midfielder hoisted the trophy at the venue he attended with his family and everyone close to the players and coaching staff. In the country of Toviggino, which, despite the heat and poor conditions on the pitch, played a key role in making Santiago del Estero the returning venue for Argentina’s football finals, Verón showed his full potential.
“The players handing me the trophy is a nice gesture that means a lot to me and I didn’t expect it, I’m grateful,” said the Pincha boss after entering the field as part of his relatives, adding: “There are emotions that I can’t let go of. This makes me think and know that.” “Good things always triumph over bad things.”
Verón and his students are the protagonists of an interesting one Paradox: that of the two sides of power. Punished by the AFA, he is the rebel who ends up keeping everything, but at the same time this success and the confrontation with Tapia is welcomed like a flag by the president of the nation himself, Javier Milei. Another game in the background: the dispute over control of Argentine football.
“EdeLP! Fin,” Milei posted about León’s victory, which he had already supported in recent weeks with messages and gestures, such as placing red and white shirts behind him in the government building or sharing photos and phrases that alluded to legends like Osvaldo Zubeldía and Carlos Bilardo.
Boca partnerswhose last election had him in mind – whistles included – to vote for Mauricio Macri’s list (who was absent and lost to Juan Román Riquelme), Milei became another pinch. For the nation’s president, who believes there should be sports stock companies in Argentina, Estudiantes became the driving force to attack Tapia and Toviggino again.
Patricia Bullricha brand new senator and former minister of national security, is an Independiente fan, but did not hesitate to change jerseys as she also celebrated Estudiantes’ new star. “Those who do it well!” he wrote to post again to the deputy Damian Arabia, who uploaded a photo of himself hugging Bullrich with the caption “Master students, let’s go, Verón!”
Verón, once the Hall gateexpressed himself in various interviews about the non-sports political connotation that the matter had. “The first thing I have to do is thank him (Milei). I want nothing more than to improve football.” Because it’s very much about politics, you might think that I took sides to represent someone, but the reality is that I didn’t. I have always said that for me politics means students: neither Peronist nor radical, neither right nor left; My politics is Estudiantes and nothing else,” said the witch, whose intention – at least publicly – is not to be on one side or the other of the national divide.
However, long before the existence of the corridor in front of Central, in early 2025, the executive showed its approval of Verón’s attempt to let in the businessman Foster Gillett as an investor in Pincha. The agreement between them was not even voted on and there was resistance in the internal political life of Estudiantes, which had received Cristian Medina from Boca as reinforcement through Gillett.
“Work with private capital that makes a contribution without destroying what is essential,” the president of Estudiantes summarized his ideal model in a conversation with Claudio Zuchovicki for LA NACION. In the same interview he warned against this “Argentina could have a unique system where social and economic coexist. But it is complex because here we always live in extremes. “Private investments don’t kill passion.”
The one liquidated by Gillett’s management went to Rampla Juniors, the historic Uruguayan team that fell victim to the failed American patron and fell into the third category. “We spent long periods of time without pay, training alone, carrying water and fruit and buying ice cream to recover,” he had revealed. Julio Buffarini, former San Lorenzo and Boca – among others – about the hardships he went through together with his teammates in this Uruguayan football team.
“I never saw Foster in person. The club continues to depend on him and, as we were told, had problems transferring money. However, we had to continue playing and showing our faces without payment. It hurt me to see that teammates didn’t even have money so the group could go to training, while Argentine teammates received eviction letters for non-payment of rent,” Buffarini explained in an interview with TyC Sports.
Fernando Muslera, who saved Gastón Martirena’s shot in the penalty shootout and put the team back in the race to win the title, said this during the celebrations in the middle of the pitch “The students have experienced very difficult situations of all kinds throughout the year.” regarding the internal ups and downs and also the external punishment for the act of rebellion to the mission to honor Central, and described Pincha as “an exemplary club that has and transmits values.”
Estudiantes is the champion who did not kneel before an order from the AFA and made a gesture of rebellion that goes beyond the limits. Because Verón is celebrated as a symbol, he is also the champion that the country’s most powerful political figures are currently celebrating.
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