He played in seven Argentine clubs, admits that he never liked football and now raises sheep

Josemir Lujambio walk through his farm located in Tacuarembo, Uruguay. In her new life away from the noise and with the peace inspired by a cackling of a hen in the background, she agrees to dialogue with THE NATION and it is forceful: he doesn’t want to know anything about football. In 2012, when she hung up her boots, she disappeared and He turned to the field, his true passion.

In his professional career he played for 18 clubs. In 1996, she crossed the pond and established a sentimental relationship with the country by wearing the colors of Hurricane of Corrientes. By dint of goals and the inevitable detail of his blonde hair, Leuambia continued his course in Argentine soccer with the shirts of Newell’s, Belgrano, Banfield -two stages-, Institute, Olympus y Atletico Tucuman.

“Since I left football I don’t want to know anything about it anymore. With what I did in sports I bought a stay and now we are, together with my family, rural producers. I dedicate myself to sheep and cattle. This is a completely different life than what I was used to in football, but now i feel like a much happier person. I used to earn more, but now with less I feel much happier”, comments Leuambiawith a cheerful and relaxed tone of voice.

Ten years after retiring from the activity, he admits that he does not keep a single shirt, nor does he have a soccer ball in his room. For him, this sport, which is a passion for crowds, was just a job, a vehicle to reach an objective that was far from a field. “I am grateful to football, it gave me the opportunity to be here, where I am and fulfill my dream. But, understand me, it did not generate anything for me”, he points.

Within the particularities of his journey, Leuambia he chose one to synthesize a faithful reflection of his feeling. “Sometimes it happened to me that I was on the bus with my teammates, from the concentration camp to the stadium, and I asked them who we were playing against. They could not believe it”remember between laughs.

During his 20-year career, Lujambio broke nets and became the nightmare of many defenders. Coupled with a good football level, his head was completely disconnected at the end of the meeting. He felt that his work was done and he didn’t even remotely tune in to a sports channel to watch his goals again. “In my career I stopped playing professionally three times. I had no problem doing it and going back to my house, It wasn’t something that drove me crazy either.. For this reason, the day I left football it was not difficult for me. Sometimes I hear that soccer players get depressed because they stop playing and I don’t understand them. If that happens to you, it’s because you didn’t do things right.”, risk.

In 2005, after being unemployed for ten months, Leuambia received a call from his countryman Luis Garisto and decided to accept the proposal of Institute. Upon arriving in Córdoba, one of the most soccer-loving places in the country, the striker decided to highlight, as a letter of introduction, that he was a fan of Belgrano, one of the clubs with which Gloria maintains a rivalry. “I felt it that way, but when you go with the truth sometimes they don’t like it. For the fans of the Institute, he was a reverend son of his mother, they used to piss me off every game. Until in a match with Almagro we lost 2-0. It was the sentence to go to the descent and in the absence of a minute I scored two goals and we ended up winning 3-2. Once the game was over and I walked off the court they loved me. They are really crazy. Neither I understood them, nor they me. There is no middle ground, it is hard to believe that a person kills himself for a team and puts them, for example, ahead of his family, ”he says about passion.

“I come to soccer for a 15th birthday″. Lujambio is tempted and recalls those first steps, quite unusual. Born in Durazno, a city in his native country, he moved to Florida, 100 kilometers away, for an under-18 boys tryout for the Uruguay national team. He, as described, was a guri who played amateur championships in his neighborhood and decided to accept the proposal of a well-known coach of his.

In a building where around 40 boys gathered, Lujambio put only one condition: play only 45 minutes of the game because he had a 15th birthday after that practice. “I played, scored three goals and left for my birthday (laughs). And the next day the technician calls me and tells me: ‘Of the 40 who showed up, you were left alone’”.

“I didn’t even know where I had gotten myself. I had no idea what football was. I was an amateur player and all of a sudden I went to the Uruguayan national team where we ended up playing a South American in Venezuela and then we went to the World Cup in Portugal”, highlights Josemir, still without understanding the turns of fate that put him in a place where many young people would like to be, and for one reason or another they are ruled out by a single game where the margin of error is nil.

Returning from Europe in 1992, he received a proposal from Defensor Sporting to sign a contract as a professional player. Accepting her, he bought an apartment, laid the foundations for his budding career, and entered, almost unwittingly, a world where felt like a green dog.

In 1996, Josemir Lujambio he was in Newell’shis second club in the country, which he adopted, over time, as his second nationality for the hospitality he received at every step he took.

During the domestic tournament of the Argentine Football Association (AFA)the Uruguayan began to be recognized with his goals, to the point of being in the orbit of Boca Juniors. By then, Carlos Salvador Bilardo He was the Xeneize coach and he was looking for an attacker with a goal.

Being a man of many stories and occurrences, of being in detail of everything that happened around him, Bilardo asked his wife Gloria which striker to take to his team and the answer was forceful: “Bring Lujambio”.

“It was amazing when I found out. I could not believe it. One day they come and tell me that story, which they later corroborated for me in Boca. Bilardo needed a striker who could score goals, so his wife asked me. It’s those things about football that I don’t understand”, he says, between laughs.

On top of a horse, Lujambio feels that he is a happy man. Multi-faceted. That same person who had to leave the area when the ball did not reach his area. Owner of a ranch, he breeds Australian merino type sheep, performs inseminations, attends rural exhibitions and is constantly learning. “On the field you are more versatile than in football. I always say that I am not the 1, but I am a good 2″, details.

Father of Valentinaborn in Uruguay, and Manuel, born in Rosario when he was a Newell’s player, remembers every moment and does not deny his past. At the time of naming Argentina, his voice register changes. “Argentina is missed. In fact, I feel half Uruguayan and half Argentine. I am grateful for everything they gave me, what I experienced, the outings with friends, the things we experienced together, but one also has to realize that things are changing”, he concludes, while the conversation with this medium ends and his goals, surely, will be present again in the heads of nostalgic soccer fans, who respect them, but you will never understand them.