Agustín Rossi's unknown past: from playing basketball to the day he almost became Chacarita's 9 in an official match

The video with Rossi's revelations

He was the savior of Boca Juniors in two series of penalties against River, he appears in several matches and also in the 90 minutes of the last Superclassic at the Monumental. Agustín Rossi is today one of the best archers in Argentine football, he appears in the folder of the coaching staff of the Argentine national team as a relay and even sounded at Barcelona in Spain. His destiny was always linked to sport, although it may well have been far from the goal and even practicing another discipline.

“I had to play basketball in parallel with football and for my position it was very important, it helped me a lot because of the things he gave me as a goalkeeper,” Rossi, invited to the presentation of the Boca basketball team, revealed in 2017. As a xeneize footballer, his past with the orange ball took on public significance and his skill was exhibited together with two professionals of the discipline such as the North American Horace Grant and Lucas Pérez.

As a child, he flocked between the football school of Daniel Leani, former player from Platense, San Lorenzo and Chacarita, in San Martín, and the doubles and triples at Club 3 de Febrero in San Andrés. “I was training football and then I was running for basketball. It was mostly like a hobby to play with my friends, but I had to choose for football and I think I did well”, confessed some time ago the 1 blue and gold.

In the baby, he played 5 and scored many goals for the 95 category. And since he had enough energy, they put him to a stop with the 94. Leani was his promoter to sign in the lower ones of Chaca, where he also started as a field player. He himself told in his last interview with ESPN that he started playing as an inside wheel on the right and then went on to do it on the left. He even had a brief step as a centre-forward, until he stood up and made it a condition that he either stopped or did not follow.

In 2013 he was promoted to the Primera del Funebrero and made his debut, at just 17 years old, for Copa Argentina with a defeat against Instituto de Córdoba in the run-up to the 32nd finals. The one who gave him the confidence to place himself under the three sticks was Carlos Leeb, who not only looked at him on the fence but also as number 9. In the best style Hurgo Orlando Gatti or the Mexican Jorge Campos.

“What that boy was heading for! Besides, he played well. He was tall and we were attacking for the gangs. I always played in the picados or when we were playing football and I was missing one. I always made him play. Archers, in general, like to play up in the picados. But he played well, jumped, went well up and headed,” recalled Gato Leeb, former coach of Rossi in Chacarita and today waiting to return to direct in Argentina, in dialogue with Infobae.

And Leeb credited the story that Rossi revealed: “In a away match against UAI Urquiza, the match went 0 to 0 and Lentini was injured on the 9th. The Cat turned around and sent me to warm up. I sat down like saying 'what for? ' '. Then I found out that he hadn't said it to me seriously, but he had intended to put me at 9 in a match.”

In 2014 it was key to the rise of Chacarita in the B Metropolitan and began to fly high: Estudiantes de La Plata bought it, in Defense and Justice he had rubbing the First Division, during his first stage in Boca he widened his back and added experience, in Lanús he became recognized as one of the best goalkeepers in the local environment and on his return to the Ribera met the expectations generated after Esteban Andrada's departure.

“Augustine has been saving very well for a long time, not yesterday. It is very nice to see him like this, he is enjoying it a lot and we trust him. He has many years ahead of him and hopefully we can enjoy it a lot”, were the flowers that Juan Román Riquelme threw at the goalkeeper of Boca after his consecratory match at the Monumental. In a parallel universe, a centre-forward Rossi would have been the replacement for Pipa Benedetto at halftime of the last Superclassic.

KEEP READING: