Hernán Galíndez, a year ago in the Copa America while Argentina-Ecuador Leco Viana (ZUMAPRESS.com / Cordon Press)
Goalkeeper Hernán Galíndez signed what he himself admitted was the best contract of his career in early 2022, just before he turned 35. After nine seasons in the modest Ecuadorian league, he made a small leap to the University of Chile, the well-known U, where he quickly became a fixture of the eleven upon arrival. And shortly afterwards he crowned his late rise with the big milestone in his sporting life: qualifying for the World Cup in Qatar with his hosts Ecuador. Originally from Rosario (Argentina), this lengthy stint in the country’s local tournament was enough for him to become a national team player (family history is not required there) and the heavens opened with the expectation of participating in the Persian Gulf World Cup next fall .
Nothing seemed to go wrong in the latter stages of his career until, according to him, Galíndez was faced with an unpredictable problem: that a battle erupted between Chile and Ecuador in the FIFA courts for a place in the world cup and that he was caught in the middle became.
Chile, seventh in South America’s qualifying phase, denounced Bryon Castillo’s allegedly improper formation in the tri (fourth) before the highest international football association. The Andean country submitted documents to prove that the 23-year-old right-back was born in Tumaco (Colombia) without any nationalization whatsoever and therefore demanded that Ecuador score the 14 points he scored in the eight games he took part in had, should take away . However, the claim went unheeded, and in this agitated and angry climate, there was probably no Chilean public figure more connected to Ecuador at the time than Hernán Galíndez.
Apart from the insults of anonymous people via social networks, the goalkeeper’s family has been harassed on several occasions, as can be seen from the player’s environment, which led them to carefully choose the places through which they moved. They did not refer to these events as “threats,” but did describe scenes of harassment.
The uneasiness, they say now, has settled in the Galíndez clan and in the goalkeeper himself. “One day when I was with the national team, as always, I uploaded a photo to the networks to show my pride and the people who weren’t from the U thought I was challenging the scheme. [de la FIFA] and they told me that a team from Chile is feeding me,” he revealed these days.
the trigger
But what finally accelerated events was a trance that touched Rosario’s fibre: his five-year-old son crying in a mall as several people, he assures, yelled at them: “Ecuadorian scammers, you’re not going to the World Cup”. There he decided to put his foot on the wall, called the club and demanded the immediate departure of the Universidad de Chile, where he was the undisputed starter in the first half of the championship.
The negotiation between the two parties was “atypical and uncomfortable”, according to the goalkeeper side, because it was not a sporting problem. At that point, Hernán Galíndez also wanted to set sail internationally and return to his native Quito, above all to be close to the national team. He made his debut with the Tri just a year ago, he has played 11 games, but in the closing stages of qualifying he became a fixture and the opportunity to play at a World Cup opened up new horizons for him.
After a week of training outside the group, the goal was Aucas (€240,000), fifth place in the first round of the modest Ecuadorian league (the second has just started). “Economically things went downhill. Everything went under. But there are things silver can’t buy. I wanted to be at the World Cup, that’s the most important thing for a footballer,” commented a person close to the goalkeeper.
Chile did not give up and appealed to FIFA, although this legal dispute has now caught Galíndez in the heat of the home, far from the fury of the Andes. “I was wrong to go there. It didn’t turn out as expected,” he said calmly these days.
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