Athletico 100 years: Farinhaki, the liberator

In the second half of his life, Athletico was lost in a dark jungle like the one described by Dante in the Divine Comedy: “So cruel and bitter that the simple memory brings back my fear”. I’m talking about Pinheirão, where one afternoon in 1991, the exhausted fans forgot about the game and went down to the social halls to demand a return to Baixada.

I always imagine the subsequent events as a biblical passage. In the box, the president José Carlos Farinhaki He was alone, but he heard a voice: “Take these people to the promised land”. Still in a trance, taken by this spirit, he told the people he would do it. When he woke up, he was asked when the works would begin. “On Monday!”, he assured.

Farinhaki arrived at Athletico in the 1970s, during the Atlético rearguard era. He was football director in the 1983, 1985 and 1988 titles. A man of the people, he knows everything about football and football players. In 1989, however, Athletico was in the worst shape, in the national Series B and tied to a leonine contract at Pinheirão. None of the Atletic cardinals had put their name forward to run for president.

Farinhaki, who had started a career as a businessman and made money selling some players, was having a beer at Bek’s and decided to put his name forward. “My idea was to make rich Atletico fans itch,” he always says. No one showed up and he ran alone.

When he took office as president, with his peculiar prosody, he said he would rise and be champion. Well, we went up and were champions. That would be enough to take him to the athletic pantheon. But there was more. He supported powerful people who wanted a shopping mall in Baixada and helped them return home by leading a large athletic effort. He left the presidency in 1993, leaving the stadium ready to be opened.

Whoever succeeded him, however, didn’t even invite him to the party. But the fans recognized him and cheered him in the stands, naming that version of the stadium “Farinhacão”. Whenever I meet him in Baixada, I thank the “drawn from the waters”, the Polish prophet who led the people in their exodus to save our Baixada.