Arsenio Erico

Arsenio Erico
Arsenio Erico in the shirt of Independiente
Personnel
Surname	Arsenio Pastor Erico
birthday	March 30, 1915
place of birth	Asunción ,  Paraguay
date of death	July 23, 1977
Place of death	Buenos Aires ,  Argentina
position	striker
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1930-1933	Club Nacional	14 0(17)
1933-1946	CA Independiente	325 (293)
1946-1947	CA Huracan	7 00(0)
1947-1949	Club Nacional	26 0(21)
1 Only league games are given.

Arsenio Pastor Erico (born March 30, 1915 in Asunción , † July 23, 1977 in Buenos Aires ) was a Paraguayan football player who spent much of his playing career in Argentina and there, together with Ángel Labruna, player with the most goals in the Primera División is.

Career

Beginnings in Paraguay

Arsenio Erico was born on March 30, 1915 in Asunción, the capital of Paraguay . There he began his football career in 1930 at the age of fifteen at Club Nacional . He scored seventeen goals in fourteen league games between 1930 and 1933 for the Club Nacional. Since 1932, the Chaco War between Paraguay and Bolivia broke out in which of a northern part of Gran Chaco was argued, no national championships were held in the small country from 1932, allowing more league games for Arsenio Erico were not possible.

Travel through Argentina

In 1933 Arsenio Erico was part of the Paraguayan players who went on a tour of Argentina due to the Chaco War. There the team played numerous games against Argentine teams. Erico made 26 unofficial caps for Paraguay during the trip organized by the Red Cross , scoring an incredible 56 goals in these 26 games. However, there was no official country competition for his home country because he did not play football in Paraguay during his best football years and it was unusual at the time to have legionaries play in the national team. In 1938 he received an offer from the Argentine national soccer team , in which they wanted to enable him to play for Argentina. Erico declined, however, with reference to his Paraguayan origin. Due to his good performances in the friendlies in Argentina, the Argentinian top club CA Independiente from Avellaneda , an industrial suburb of the capital Buenos Aires, became aware of the only eighteen-year-old attacker. In 1934, Arsenio Erico was signed by Independiente and played for the club until 1946.

Successful time at Independiente

Arsenio Erico in the sports magazine El Grafico in the jersey of CA Independiente

Erico chating with a group of women, 1939.

In his first season with the new club, Arsenio Erico scored twelve goals in 21 league games. At the end of the season, his team finished second in the standings, one point behind Boca Juniors . In the following year it was enough for Independiente again only to a second place in the table, they were again behind the Boca Juniors in the table. Arsenio Erico, meanwhile, scored 22 goals in 18 league games in the 1935 season. He managed one goal less in the following season, where he needed 26 games for his 21 goals, Independiente was only fourth. The 1937 season was his most successful season with Independiente. Although he was only second with the club in the final, but he scored 47 league goals in 34 games, which of course made him top scorer in the Primera División. He achieved a similarly good value in 1938 in the championship season of Independiente. Erico's 43 goals in 30 games contributed significantly to winning the Argentine soccer championship two points ahead of previous year's champions CA River Plate . In the following season the title could be defended and Arsenio Erico scored 40 goals in 32 league games. With his 40 goals he was in 1939 for the third time in a row top scorer in the Primera División, an achievement that was topped only by José Sanfilippos four years in a row as top scorer in the top division of Argentina. After 1939, his hit rates decreased rapidly, he had to let other strikers such as the former Spaniard Isidro Lángara , who had left his home in the course of the Spanish Civil War , Rinaldo Martino or the legendary Ángel Labruna from River Plate in the top scorer list. Combined with the weaker performances of Arsenio Erico, his club also disappeared from the championship race for many years, it was not until 1948 that Independiente became Argentine champion again.

Career finale at Huracán and Nacional

The 1946 season was the last for Arsenio Erico wearing the CA Independiente jersey. After only four goals in nineteen league games, he moved to CA Huracán in Buenos Aires. He was only used seven times for the club, which is in the lower midfield in the table, and did not score a goal. In the same year he went back to Paraguay and played two more years for his hometown club Club Nacional, where he found his way back to his old strength and scored 21 goals in 26 games in the Primera División Paraguay . In 1949, Arsenio Erico ended his footballing career at the age of 34.

useful information

Arsenio Erico is today together with Ángel Labruna top scorer in the Argentine Primera División. Both scored 293 goals during their time in Argentina's top division. It should be noted, however, that Labruna played almost 200 more games than Erico to score that number of goals. Therefore, Arsenio Erico can be called the most dangerous goal-scoring player in the Primera División of all time. In percentage terms, he scored a hit in 88% of his league games.

Various players about Brazil's famous "black diamond", Leônidas da Silva , and Delfín Benítez Cáceres , a Paraguayan striker, who traveled together with Arsenio Erico through Argentina for a long time for the Boca Juniors, the Racing Club and Ferro Carril Oeste played , praised Erico as one of the best football players of all time. According to the Argentine Francisco Varallo , the last surviving participant in the 1930 World Cup final until his death at the age of 100 , called him a "phenomenon". Alfredo Di Stéfano named Erico as one of his role models.

Arsenio Erico died in Buenos Aires on July 23, 1977 at the age of 62. After his death, his hometown club Club Nacional named his stadium Estadio Arsenio Erico . In addition, parts of the Estadio Defensores del Chaco , the largest football stadium in Paraguay, bear the name of one of the best Paraguayan football players. The same applies to today's Estadio Libertadores de América , the first stadium in Argentina to be built on the European model as an arena and home of Independiente.

Web links

• Biography ( Memento from March 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
• Biography on the Independiente website
• Information about the player

Individual evidence

1. ↑ albigol.com ( Memento from September 28, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ independiente1905.com ( Memento of July 24, 2008 in the Internet Archive )