Last update 15 March, 2020 by Alberto Llopis
Luis Monti, was born in Buenos Aires in 1901. He stressed the early twentieth century in the ranks of San Lorenzo Almagro and in turn is the player with one of the most curious events in World Cup history. That's why, in flown by the football we travel back in time to tell the story of this amazing footballer.
Luis Monti, a story soccer, dictators and even spies
As we have already said, Luis Monti, He was one of the best players in the Argentine football in the second and third decades of the early twentieth century. Thanks to this, was summoned to participate with the Argentine team in the Olympic Games 1928 where they won the silver medal. Two years later, He repeated call but this time for the first World Cup history that took place in Uruguay in 1930.
Over there, He entered the history of Argentine football by being the first player who scored a goal for Argentina in World Cup history. Argentina, He played the first final of the World Cup history against Uruguay in a match that went beyond the limits of the pitch and caused thousands of Argentines crossed the Rio de la Plata. In that final tragedy began for him.
A story worthy of a movie
Hours before playing the final, which curiously was the repetition that had been played two years before in the Olympic Games, Monti, he received a letter in Montevideo hotel where he was staying with Argentina. In it a terrible message, Argentina, I could not win that final in any way but, he or his family would be killed.
Who was the sender of this letter scabrous?, nothing more and nothing less than a movie as if it were spies that the then dictator and head of Italy, The Duce Benito Mussolini who he had sent two emissaries to Montevideo with a clear mission, get what Luis Monti play with Italy in the next World Cup.
The truth is that according to the chronicles of the time and historians, He tried not to play to avoid greater evils for him or his family but did not get that to happen and participated in the meeting although it was far from the player who was and who everyone knew. In the presence of two black shirts that Mussolini had sent, Argentina lost in a second part in which many decided deleted to avoid greater evils.
The two agents of Il Duce, They not had to liquidate anyone. As Marco Scaglia wrote, one of the two agents, years later in a memoir, the orders were intended to prevent Luis Monti It became a national idol that would have prevented their passage to Italy.
Trip to Italy and change of nationality
Argentina's press was fattened with him as fans being disowned. Italian emissaries had gotten what they wanted and Monti, He emigrated to Italy with brutal economic conditions for the time. He played at Juve and Lazio and finally went to the Italian event with the coat of the hosts just four years after I did with that of Argentina. It should be said that at that time the current rules were not in force in a football that was much less professional than the current one, so you could change teams and countries without any problem..
But the dramas and the scares were not finished for Monti. Mussolini, had to win that Italy World Cup 1934 at all costs to use it for political purposes, It was the perfect excuse for his fascist regime propaganda. Italia, He reached the final with refereeing decisions and the less suspicious matches. Il Duce's message was clear for final: “overcome or die”. Like in 1930, the play went right and no one had to die. Italy won the World Cup and Luis Monti, the only man who played two World Cups with two different countries made history for such a direct statement as true: ” In Uruguay 1930 They wanted to kill me if he won four years later in Italy if he lost”.
