Arsenio Erico

Arsenio Erico
Personal information
Full name	Arsenio Erico
Date of birth	March 30, 1915
Place of birth	Asunción, Paraguay
Date of death	July 23, 1977 (aged 62)
Playing position	Striker
Senior career1
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1930–1933 1933–1946 1946–1947 1947–1949	Nacional Independiente Huracán Nacional	? (?) 325 (293) 7 (0)  ? (?)
National team
	Paraguay	26 (56) unofficial
1 Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Arsenio Pastor Erico (March 30, 1915 - July 23, 1977) was a Paraguayan football forward. He is tied with Angel Labruna as the all-time highest goalscorers in the Argentine first division. He is considered the best Paraguayan footballer of all time.^[1]

Career

As a player

Erico, born in Asunción, Paraguay, started his career in Club Nacional of Paraguay and made his debut in the club's first team squad at the age of 15.

During the early 1930s, Erico was part of the Paraguayan Red Cross football team that was on tour in Argentina in order to gather founds for the Chaco War. Because of his good performances during the friendly matches in the mentioned tour, Club Atlético Independiente of Argentina signed him. He made his debut for Independiente on May 5, 1934 and began to show why he had acquired the nickname 'red jumper'. Before the 1938 FIFA World Cup Erico was offered an extravagant amount of money to play for the Argentine national football team but he rejected it, gaining the praise of the general Argentine public for remaining loyal to his country of origin.^[2] Soon after this, however, Erico caught an infection which led to a long period out of the game. Then, in 1935, he fractured his arm twice. After he recovered, however, he reminded everyone of his talent by taking Independiente to the league title in 1938 and 1939. Later, he joined Huracán where he only played 7 games in 1947 before retiring.

Erico was the league's top-scorer three times in a row: 1937 (47 goals), 1938 (43) and 1939 (40). In 1938, an Argentine tobacco company offered prize money to any player that would score 43 goals during the season (in reference to the company's product, the cigarette brand "Cigarrillos 43"). With two games left before the season was over, Erico had already reached 43 goals and later admitted to have purposely missed goals in the last two games in order to win the prize.^[3] This means that Erico could have surpassed his own record of 293 goals in Argentine football during his career.

Erico never played an official game for Paraguay but he did score an incredible 56 goals in 26 unofficial matches between 1933 and 1934.

As a coach

Arsenio Erico had a brief career as a football coach after retiring from professional football. He managed the club where he started his career as a footballer, Nacional and also had a brief stint in Club Sol de América where he led the team to a second place finish in the 1957 Paraguayan league.

Legacy

Arsenio Erico was an inspiration to Argentine player Alfredo Di Stéfano, who considered him one of the greatest players ever. Other figures like Brazilian striker Leônidas da Silva and Paraguayan Delfín Benítez Cáceres also consider Erico as the one of the best players in history.^[4] Argentine striker Francisco Varallo remembers Erico as a "phenomenon" that would excel in scoring headers due to his high jumps.^[3]

Club Nacional stadium is named after him, and sections of the Defensores del Chaco stadium in Paraguay and the Libertadores de América stadium in Avellaneda also carry Arsenio Erico's name.^[5] He died on July 23, 1977.

Career summary

Arsenio at El Gráfico magazine, June of 1969

^[6]

References