The Eye of Memory. Today: Mágico González

""I admit that I am not a saint... I know I am irresponsible and a bad professional... I don't like to take football as a job"."  Mágico González

Jorge Alberto González Barillas, "Mágico González", was born in San Salvador on March 13, 1958. He was a footballer, who could be considered bohemian and unique. He had creativity, an electric dribble and exceptional technique, moving freely in the attacking zone. He is considered by many as the best Central American player of the 20th century, and the best footballer to have played for Cádiz C.F. 

He scored 60 goals in 211 matches played with Cádiz, What great goals!. And besides the goals, What moves!. When he had the ball, it was his. No one could take it away from him, it seemed like he dribbled floating on a cloud. In some of his plays, if you like football, you have to laugh at the tricks he did, he always had one more feint.

He was unpredictable in every sense...

In an interview, his former coach, Héctor Bambino Veira, stated:

«If training was set at 10, he would come at 11. If it was at 11, he showed up at 12... Do you know what I gave him? An alarm clock this big with Donald Duck on it. I set it to ring at training and it went ¡pan-pan-pan! like the Iraq war. I told him: 'Look, Mágico, if you don’t get up with this, you won’t get up with anything.' The next day, training was at 11 in the morning and he arrived at 12:30... So I decided to hire a whole flamenco group, really, and I sent them to his door the next morning. There they started singing loudly: 'Mágicooo, come to train!' Clapping and all.... The Salvadoran opened the door. Very slowly and blinded by the light, he said: «I get up because I like the music».

There are many stories of Mágico in Cádiz, I suppose some are true, others feed the myth of a legend. 

The fans always forgave him everything, because he had a brutal charisma, he was humble and in the end, he was the one who brought them back to First Division by finishing second and going up directly. And he wasn’t a saint: many parties until late, bad company and in training he performed quite poorly. He smoked, drank, the life he led was not that of an athlete, it was the life of someone who wanted to live life unbound.

On the other hand, a generous person. He gave away the clothes he was wearing, even his shoes, to beggars or people who needed them, he invited everyone at the bars, he gave high-value bills to children or whoever he met. Money had no value to him; it was his passport to freedom. 

He has countless anecdotes, one of them with another coach David Vidal, who, fed up with his antics and him disappearing (even the coach looked for him in bars and he hid where he couldn’t see him), the coach decided to leave him out of the squad. Mágico, without hesitation, scolded him while lighting a cigarette in front of him, which made the coach explode. Then David Vidal dared him, in front of everyone: if he was able to give 30 touches to a Winston cigarette pack without dropping it, he could smoke without penalty. 30? No way. Mágico managed 50 touches like it was nothing.

His teammates have always said that he was the best player they have ever seen play. Maradona, in 1984, in an interview said about him: He is the best footballer in the world. Cruyff said about him: He is one of the players with the most class I have seen, he is one of the 5 best footballers in Spain. 

When he retired from football he gave us another famous quote: "I respected football but I did not respect myself". For him, football was only entertainment, if he had taken it as what it is, a job, could he have been one of the best footballers of all time or on the contrary, would he have lost his magic? 

Here we pay him a small tribute. We hope life gives him a lot of health, wherever Mágico González is.

Dedicated to my friend Pibe.

As it couldn't be otherwise, we leave you a video of goals and plays.