On the other side of the line, the first thing you hear are birds and you sense a serene scene. The second thing you hear through the telephone receiver is the greeting of Josemir Lujambio (52)that Uruguayan striker who landed in Argentine football in the mid-90s and wore the shirt of seven clubs.
In total there were 19 clubs in which he played throughout his career, between early amateurs and professionals. He left his mark on Uruguay, Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico y Spain. In the AFA First Division he scored 92, goals distributed in Huracán Corrientes (16)Newell’s Old Boys (6); Belgrano (17); Banfield (33); Institute (10) and Olympus (10). In the Ascension he added others 11 with the Corrientes Globe and cinco more at Atlético Tucumán.
Also has seven goals in 17 games in four editions of the Copa Libertadores: one with Defensor Sporting in 1992; another with Beautiful View in 1993; three with Maritime of Venezuela in 1997 and two for Banfield in 2007.
To talk about retirement is to tell it in sections. The first time he hung up his boots he had had such a good campaign at Banfield – although he started out elusive – that he was transferred to Mexican soccer. He thought it was the best time to retire and at 31 years old he said enough after two seasons divided between Queretaro y Celaya.
He was the same age as the number on his shirt. It was the number he adopted when he arrived at Drill and he asked for number 11. He was out of luck: the leader who was in charge of that matter did not give him many options. “So, half with contempt he told me: ‘There’s no 11, for you there’s 31.’ And I told him: ‘Give me the 31st, there.’ And from then on, whenever I could, I used that number,” he recalls.
That’s why when the endearing Luis Garisto, who directed him in Banfield in that campaign that left a mark on Lujambio, called him to bring him out of retirement and sign him for Instituto, he used her again. Then he returned to Drill to play Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana with Julio Falcioni as DT, he continued in Bahía Blanca Olympus and announced the end again as a professional after a season in Atlético Tucumán in 2009.
But it wasn’t. Based in the countryside where he raises sheep and cows in Paso de los Toros, Uruguay, they came to tempt him in 2011 to play in Defender, the club that represents that Department. And he said yes again, like the following year when he changed shirts and extended his career in Porongos.
–Is there another return planned?
-No! I never played again. The last time my son, a friend and my nephew insisted and we went to play five-a-side soccer: it lasted 30 seconds. I wanted to hit him the way he wanted me to and I was torn the first time I touched.
–From what you said on other occasions you don’t really like football. Why did you come back so many times?
–I was not a football fan, I have always said that. Football was an opportunity or a good option. I realized that it was an interesting route to my dream, which was this (through the countryside). And well, I also had to bet on football and do it well, right? Because it’s not like you’re going to do well in football because you just want to: you have to make an effort. I knew it meant investing a few years in it and then, surely, I would enjoy what it left me.
–Were you not interested in football at first or was it a disappointment when you entered the professional world?
–I wasn’t very interested, I didn’t know anything. When I entered football I had no idea what could be charged and in those years it was not yet the boom it is today. Of course, I still had to fight it a little more because the money that exists today was not paid. But hey, it was a possibility. A very interesting possibility for the time in which we lived. Imagine that at 17 I had what my old man had at 50, who had just built his house, and I already had two apartments in Montevideo thanks to soccer. It was totally good and profitable to think about continuing in football. There weren’t many options.
-Agricultural engineer. We were an average family with the necessary resources to live month to month. And although I was clear that at the beginning I was going to study to have a career to progress, I didn’t even imagine it would be football. But hey, I saw that possibility and I didn’t hesitate. The day I was leaving for Montevideo, my mother asked me if she was going to stop studying. “What do you think?” I replied. I didn’t play soccer and suddenly I went to the youth team, earning $25 per day in travel expenses… Imagine. At that moment I was walking without a penny and I just had it there, although the difference is abysmal from what football represented at that time and in this moment.
–Without being a football fanatic, without even having had that aspiration, how did you get along with your teammates? Did you suffer being a footballer or did you cope well?
-No no. for nothing, for nothing. If you ask me what I take away from myself, I would tell you that adapting to the situation, to any situation. And the moment I started I realized that it was the possibility of a lifetime for the dream I had. The dream of my entire life was to be able to have what I enjoy today. So I knew that they were those years of being a soccer player and trying to give one hundred percent, regardless of the fact that I didn’t like it. It could go well or badly, but I gave my best, see? The life of a footballer is beautiful. It is a bubble within the world we live in: You eat and sleep in the best hotels, you have everything at hand. Are you sick? You have the best doctors, the best clinics. So I say, adapting to the good is very easy… In the bad, not so much. And my colleagues knew it. I adapted. I was a guy who was always happy. He wasn’t one to have arguments. I think that in 20 years of my career I don’t know if I have had two or three arguments in football.
–Do you miss anything about football?
-You know that no? How strange I feel talking about this, because for me football, like it was, like it’s already there. Today I tell you the truth, I watch practically no football, nothing. Look, the only thing I watch is the Argentine National Team because of Leo (Messi) because it seems to me that beyond the soccer player, what he is as a person is impressive. And I rescue that, I rescue that there are still good people in football, because I consider that football has become a lot about money, politics, there are many created interests, which do not go with what I want to be for me. life.
–And you don’t watch the Uruguayan team?
–No, I don’t look. I have seen that he is playing very well, that they brought in Bielsa and he gave him a different touch. Uruguay is playing something it has never played in its life, it seems to me. And I don’t understand anything about football, huh. But seeing Uruguay today, the other days, with the ride that Argentina took in Argentina, was impressive. I’m glad that a coach with that ability has come, who makes Uruguay play. Because Uruguay has good players. The thing is that, for me, something always came up that we didn’t like. Beyond the fact that I was a Flintstone, I liked to watch good football play. There is confidence that Uruguay is playing very well, it is playing what it has never played before. You know more, but I imagine that’s how it is.
–Do you feel like you were a flintstone?
-I think so. I don’t know, I don’t know. What happens is people think that because I played soccer, I know about soccer. And I don’t know about football! Did you see that everyone talks 3-4-3; 4-5-4 5.6… I have no idea. They told me: play, go in, score a little and when the ball is close to the goal, put it in. And I think that was it, I never considered myself an elite player. Yes, a player who left everything on the field. But I don’t think I was one of the good ones.
–Would you have liked to play more for the national team?
–At the time it was there, it was not what it is today. There were many problems with the leaders, there were times when we had to pay for the ticket… That was another world. So you tell me: “What team are you a fan of?” And I’m not a fan of any of them, but where you have the best time is where you remember the most. And in the national team there were not pleasant memories: we didn’t beat anyone, we were a disaster. So it’s not like I wanted to play more or less, I played what I had to play and that’s it. And I don’t make that balance either.
–Where do you remember most?
–There are two teams that were fundamental for me. Belgrano de Córdoba: there we had a nice moment, very nice, because of everything we experienced, even playing the relegation. Because it was a very nice human group, we all pushed forward and it was not such a financially profitable club. The other was Banfield, during Garisto’s time. What we experienced was impressive after being practically relegated three games from the first championship and we were saved for the rest of the year. I said two, but there are three. The other was South America from here in Uruguay. There we were united by the fact that we were all young, we all needed to go out and the need.
–Do you watch your goals on YouTube?
–Do you remember any of your own goals?
–One of the goals I liked the most was a header with Banfield against Lanús in a classic that we won 1-0 (N de la R, it was 2 to 0, the other goal was from José Sand, an attack partner in Banfield). I clearly remember because the goals I liked the most were headers.
–Because I didn’t nod, I didn’t nod. And when I went to South America, here in Uruguay, Julio Ribas taught me. I was afraid of heading because when I was a kid I had suffered a blow to the head and he was afraid. He took away my fear. I had the virtue of, more or less, jumping well. Another one that I liked was the one I did to River, also from the head, with Banfield. (N of R: that day he scored three, the first was a header)
–And what do you keep from football?
–And… first with thanks to him. Soccer taught me many things and I learned to value things that are difficult to have today: making 100 dollars is a lot of work. And in football, in football making 100 dollars was an everyday thing, do you understand me? The teaching of life, of understanding the sacrifice you have to make… Before I worked little and earned a lot, now I work a lot and earn little.
–What is your work day like in the field?
–And… I get up and there are always things to do. We are dedicated to sheep and cattle farming and we have a complex of cabins in a natural environment, they are quite rustic, for sport fishing and conservation tourism. And I live in that one. I wake up calm, there is nothing to stress about here. Time doesn’t pass as fast as it does in a city, not to mention. And you have everything to do: one day you are a carpenter, another day you are a welder, another day you are a gaucho…. There is everything to do, it is a totally different world to football: you lose the glamour, you lose a lot of things that make you It’s football, which obviously you don’t have here.
-Yeah! That’s tremendous and even more so the older you get, even more so because the ink takes years off of you.