Alexis Gomez rocks a partner while enjoying her vacation at her home in San Martin, north of Greater Buenos Aires. After the break, You have to go back to India. The country where he has relocated his football career in the last four months.
He already played for Sudeva FC in New Delhi in Indian football’s second tier, the I-League – where he scored eight goals and provided three assists in eleven games, but now he’ll have a new club: he’ll be leaving the capital of the world’s brand new most populous country – surpassing China – for another one of its Calcutta, the main city, to strengthen the Muhammadan SC. “Football is not very developed there. That’s why I stood out so much.”says Time With a smile, I am still amazed by an experience that is not the norm in Argentina: playing in India.
The former player of Estudiantes de Buenos Aires, UAI Urquiza and Deportivo Riestra, 23 years old and 55 matches in our promotion between 2017 and 2022, talks about exotic football and recalls his childhood football times in San Martin, he shared with Enzo. Fernandez is the 2022 world champion in Qatar.
“Football in Argentina is very aggressive, physically speaking. You can’t see this in India. That’s why I took advantage. In some plays I was going to press and I looked back and nobody was following me,” says Gomez, who is familiar with another sporting environment until 2022, Our Ascent. It was very easy for me. National O and B are more competitive, with more friction and smaller courts. I have a lot of space in India“, he says.
Alexis plays as a striker or attacking midfielder in the I-League. In 2023 he started Sudeva Delhi and will do so for the rest of the year Mohammad SC from Kolkata: “I’m going with my wife, we’ll be there. Besides, I’ve already played in that city and I know football is different. You play well, they’re surprised and show it. It’s good”.
Alexis assures that Argentina is a reference: “In India they want to play a football like ours. They asked me questions and I told them that I lived here. However, he understands that there is a cultural and sporting difference: “The boys are very good, but at the club I was at, football like us. not living “They scored a goal against us in one game, no problem,” said the defender. I despised him from top to bottom. How can they not have problems when they score against us?«.
There are many Argentine footballers abroad, but India is a place so different from other places that it looks out of this world: “When I walk through Delhi it’s a mess, the streets are more backward than they are here. When I get to the airport, The first day, it was horrible. I went out and someone called my name and he grabbed my suitcase and took me to the car. He was the one who sold taxi rides and I thought he would have come looking for me. The guy asked me which hotel I was going to and asked me questions through an interpreter. I was surprised he didn’t know. We got to the hotel and he wanted me to pay for the hotel and the taxi. I had to call the agent. He had a barbaric stool ».
Diet is also an issue to consider. “Living in India is a bit difficult, it’s another culture in terms of coexistence and food. In the hotel, when we focus, it’s all spicy, I try to eat white rice or pour water on the chicken to remove the spice. Always the same,” says Gomez.
He says he is comfortable there and his idea now is to play a longer season and then continue in Asia unless an offer comes from Europe. “When an Argentinian goes to play they treat him well. They always take photos, which makes one happy. For example, when you start scoring free kick goals, they already look at you in a different way.’Oh, he’s Argentinian‘”, says Alexis, Qatar 2022 has reaffirmed Indians’ love for the albino colors.
He also knows it very well, because he is related to one of the Scaloneta players, with whom he played in the childhood of the club near La Recova in San Martin’s Villa Libertad: “They found out I was a friend of Enzo Fernandez They wanted me to say hello. When I came to Setua all the people were happy. They called me ‘Messi, Messi’.
Alexis later recalled his time as a child, where he was a five-time champion in the 2000 division and played with the current Chelsea midfielder. “We were the boys and everyone was going to watch us. Enzo played. People from other clubs stayed to watch our division because we were boys and we did big things. We threw walls, made set pieces or lateral ball plays.
“He wants a baby in a good home…”, read the headline in the sports newspaper Ole On March 31, 2017, River and Boca announced that Alexis Gomez was in talks to be in their lineup. “I made my debut when I was 16. That’s where Boca, Nadi and Lanus came to find me. I was in Boca for two weeks, but always with a contract at Estudiantes (BA). This was in 2017, when Claudio Vivas was there. I have been With players like (Exequiel) Zeballos and (Agustín) Almendra. In the first days, they already asked me to stay because the club wanted me. It seems that the student leader asked for a lot of money. The same thing happened at Lanus, where I spent two weeks in retirement. In 2019, Diego Martínez was at Estudiantes (now at Tigre) and he didn’t count me too much. So I asked him to play reserve and it was good Fortaleza, Brazil came looking for me. I stayed for two months and the president traveled to fix it, and this time I don’t know what happened. There was always something. In 2020 they released me to Estudiantes. It’s unbelievable.”
But local football is a part of the past, and today Gomez is the Argentine representative of a less expected place. «
“Beer fanatic. Bacon advocate. Wannabe travel junkie. Social media practitioner. Award-winning gamer. Food lover.”
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