Former Universitario and Blanquirroja goalscorer Piero Alva was interviewed by Luis ‘Cuto’ Guadalupe on his YouTube channel. The “Zorro” mentioned some little-known anecdotes from his life, including one that shaped his youth.
The forward was part of the Peru U-20 team that played against the South American of that category in Argentina in 1999. The Bicolor was close to qualifying for the World Cup, but to do so he had to beat Chile on the final day of the hexagonal final, a result unattainable by a controversial referee decision.
“They stole the game against Chile from us. They said Roque Santa Cruz was already sold to Bayern Munich and we left Paraguay out. We won 2-1 against Chile, we qualified and the referee Ángel Sánchez didn’t cheekily take an offside that was 2-2,” said Alva.
With that tie, Peru and La Roja released the pass for the Guarani to claim fourth place in the World Cup.
Years later, however, the “Zorro” met this referee again Angel Sanchez Between 2016 and 2017, the former footballer completed training as a technical manager.
“I did the DT course in Argentina and who was the professor of rules and arbitration? He was it. I’ll take a picture of it and send it to the group of guys from this team. ‘Send it to the m… from me,’ they told me,” he revealed.
The former goalscorer was very surprised when the referee remarked that he remembered that game and his mistake: “In his course he lets us introduce everyone. ‘I’m Piero Alva, I was a professional player, like that, I was in the under-20 team in Mar del Plata’, as soon as I said that he turned around and said to me in front of everyone: ‘You have to have me hate, tell your promotion forgive me,'” he said.
“He told the story as it happened: ‘You’re right, you should have gone to the World Cup, my mistake was believing in the line, I saw it so sure I let the game go on.’ I was about to throw myself out the window and I said to him, ‘Yeah, my promotion hates you a bit,'” he concluded.