Never has a nickname been so well placed as the one they gave to Nicolas Tagliani: he ‘Crazy’, who entered a soccer field and now gives free rein to his fanaticism in the stands of Boca Juniors and Lima Alliance. The former Argentine striker began his football career in the lower divisions of Estudiantes de la Plata and when he was promoted to the first team in 1995, he shared a locker room with Martín Palermo, Lionel Scaloniand many more stars.
He sticks out his chest every time he remembers his teammates because not many have that luxury. The now technical Olympia from Paraguay and the Argentine national team are his friends to this day. Then the ball continued rolling in his life and took him to different leagues in the world: Switzerland, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Colombia, Greece, Italy, and ended up in his country.
The hair painted with different looks and the tattoos that took over his body were the hallmark of Tagliani. Although he loved having that style, he had to endure strong comments from teammates and fans.
Nicholas He proudly shows the ink on his skin with the Boca Juniors and Alianza Lima shield. He is not only a fan; He is a fan, and that same passion accompanies him every time he cheers them on from the stands. He travels long hours, hangs out with the fans, leaves his throat in the stands, and his last adventure was in the game of ‘blue and white’ and ‘chieftains’ for Copa Libertadores.
– You were seen in the stands encouraging Alianza Lima against Colo Colo…
I’m dead from the trip. We went to Chile for four days. I got together with a group of friends called San Martín Grone and we go everywhere.
– Did you have the feeling that Alianza could win it?
We all kept the Venezuelan’s ball that he threw into the stands, where we were. I always say, Alianza has good players, but it has young people who, to face the Copa Libertadores… need leaders. You need five or six well-known, prestigious players who know how to lead the team forward.
-How did you react when Jeriel De Santis missed that goal?
My mind is different from that of every fan because I lived it inside. Obviously, I think more as a fan than as a player, but it’s difficult to give an opinion. As a player it is something that you can fail, but he had everything to hit it softly or look for an angle or settle in, I don’t know. I think that the young man’s inexperience led him to stumble, what do I know. You have to see what was going through the player’s head at that moment.
– What do you think of the controversial statements by Arturo Vidal?
What happens is that Arturo thinks he is still playing in the Champions League, and he is no longer in the Champions League and he has to know that both Alianza and any team that is going to play as a visitor will do their job to annoy the local team because the local team He is the one who has to go out and find the game. Alianza had two or three nice plays and I think they made a very good approach, and as I told you, Alianza needs two or three players with experience, who are physically up to par and who can combine youth with experience. He has Barcos, but today he is not up for a Libertadores, he is already big. He is a crack, a great player as a person, but he himself has to know that he is not physically up to par with a Libertadores because it is not the championship, it is a very competitive tournament in which if you give a chance, they will pass you by.
– Do you think the ‘blue and white’ will advance to the next round in the Copa Libertadores?
Alianza has to win both home games and advance to the next round. That’s the job of the coach and the players are going to have to be at their best physically and mentally because no game is easy and even more so when it is played at home because of the pressure. Hopefully everything goes well.
-How did this fanaticism for Alianza Lima begin?
The brotherhood that I created with Alianza, both with the people and with some leaders. I became very attached to the Peruvians, to the Peruvian people. It’s like a brotherhood, I had it from day one when I had a run-in with the bars in Matute and the next day they invited me to eat ceviche, leche de tigre, go surfing, on a motorcycle. I lived with them for a year and I still do.
-How did you get to Matute in 2003?
It was something nice because I didn’t even know Peru. I was on a beach in Argentina with friends and my representative called me, he told me ‘on Sunday you are going to Lima to play the Copa Libertadores’. I told him no because he was on vacation and he insisted because Alianza needed a striker. I arrived on a Sunday and on Wednesday we were playing with Olimpia from Paraguay, who had just won the Cup in 2002.
– You shared a team with Jefferson Farfán, Guillermo Salas…
I shared with the most leaders who passed through Alianza Lima. There was Waldir, ‘Chicho’, ‘Foca’, Ciurlizza, Jayo, Roverano, Vílchez, ‘Zorrito’, Pepe Soto; He had a great team. We had a wonderful team, we were all very united. I was missing three or two games before we became champions because I got into a fight with an Argentine coach who came and nothing, the team was very solid. I had too much fun.
-And what was that locker room like?
The locker room was salsa all day long that you went crazy. And I arrived and played Argentine rock, cumbia and they wanted to kill me. When we trained, we trained and when we fucked, we fucked. Alianza Lima was criticized a lot because Magaly grabbed them on a birthday. They recorded almost the entire team, before that was normal.
– What is the moment you remember most with Alianza Lima?
The moment that people remember me was when the classic was played with Universitario and I scored a goal at 4-2, we were visitors and obviously the entire stadium belonged to the ‘U’. That makes me remember people, they send me the video and tell me that they don’t forget. It seems to me that they remember that goal most, which I scored in the Libertadores.
– Do you know that Jefferson Farfán is now a YouTuber?
I saw the episode with Carlos Zambrano and I laughed my ass off. He ‘Black’ He is a character and ‘Cornet’ Is worldwide. What they are doing is very nice, it is what Peru was missing, so that they can see what the life of a soccer player is like, so that they can see the other side of the player. I’m going to say hello to Farfán when I go to see Alianza in the Cup and we’re probably going to put something together.
– If you had to choose between Boca Juniors and Alianza Lima…
I am a lifelong fan of Alianza, but I know all the people from Boca and the truth is they don’t understand how I am a fan of two clubs. I don’t like Barcelona, Madrid, I only like Napoli because of Maradona; but here they know that I am a fan of Boca and Alianza Lima, for me they are two equal clubs. What’s more, on Sunday the classic Boca vs River was played, which Boca won and I had tickets, I gave them to a friend and I went to see Alianza Lima. The kids didn’t understand anything and told me you’re crazy and yes. It is my madness that I have with Peru, which is my second home. And on the way back, Boca played Sudamericana in Brazil, and we met the Boca fans and they told me ‘what are you doing Peruvian’, but in a good way.
– What do you think of Luis Advíncula’s performance at Boca Juniors?
He ‘Black’ It’s a beast, it’s devastating. I spoke with him a couple of times, and he is one of Boca’s most beloved players. He got into the hearts of Boca fans because he sweats his shirt, scores goals and causes them to score goals.
– Do you think it should be renewed?
I don’t even get involved in that because no player who is in Boca has a good time financially because Boca is the biggest in the world, but they are not where they should be financially. These are things that are happening in the leadership. I believe that Advíncula can play in any league in the world.
– You played with Martín Palermo and Lionel Scaloni in Estudiantes…
They are players that you will never think will be what they are. There are a thousand anecdotes, but I can’t tell them because it’s kind of dangerous. We did many things, before there were no cell phones, communication, today you do something and it appears on social networks and you are in the oven. Happy for them, I have a lot of contact with Martín and with Leo Scaloni from time to time because he is with the national team. When we met, we were very friends, we spent almost three years in Estudiantes and there are many anecdotes, but they remain saved.
– Did you think that Lionel Sacoli would make Argentina world champion?
When they named him, I didn’t imagine him as the national team coach, without anyone knowing him even though you have to have a lot of experience in the field. He is very wise, very Bielsa, he was a visionary, what he wanted, he did. He put together a team with a coaching staff and very focused players and because of the replacement of players he made because no one thought that with that team he was going to become champion.
– Is there a real enmity with Marcelo Gallardo?
That was a soccer page that cut sentences that I said, obviously they put what sells the most, but what I said is real: Gallardo today, in Arabia, didn’t win anything. He didn’t do well. What’s more, he came out that he doesn’t know where he is going to lead because he won’t be there anymore. The time when Gallardo started to win was when Boca put pepper spray on the field, when the president of River got in and grabbed his players and took them away. That date they give River the win by winning the game, and I said that Gallardo won everything because he had a president like Rodolfo D’onofrio and a manager like Enzo Francescoli who were great. If he didn’t have those two people, he didn’t gain anything, and the press said that I hated Gallardo. What I had was a fight with him because it is my category and I always fought with him in the youth teams because he was mischievous, he was a good player, he talked a lot and that was it. They distorted everything and said that I hate Marcelo Gallardo, but I don’t hate anyone, that was the bad vibes of some journalists.
– You made a ball in your hair, and you always changed your look. Did Martín Palermo copy you?
He ‘Crazy’ He saw me and told me: ‘you have to do marketing’, because before you had to get a sponsor to earn a few more pesos, it wasn’t like now. Because maybe Palermo would be at Barcelona and I would be at Real Madrid. I dyed my hair as a boy, not because I played ball, in Alianza I had a blue mohawk and I had all the fans the next day with the blue Mohican. It was because I liked it that way and not for them to see. What’s more, because of my haircut, because of my tattoos, they called me a ‘drug addict’, a crazy person, and well, today all the players are ‘drug addicts’ because they are all tattooed, weird haircut, you understand? Before, a tattoo was like you were a weird kid, and in Colo Colo I had a bad time because the technician I had did internal doping on me every ten days, supposedly it was random, but Tagliani always came out. One day I got excited and told him ‘teacher, you will see that only Coca Cola comes out of my veins because it is the only thing I drink. Don’t break me anymore with tattoos because I don’t take drugs.’ I didn’t need drugs to play ball, the guy half understood, but I did internal doping every ten or twenty days, which was crazy.
– Now you are a player representative…
I am with a couple of players in some clubs, they always call me and I am with two or three businessmen. We advise players more than anything so that they don’t have a bad time and if they have to join a club we give them a hand. The player feels comfortable with the fact that what happened to us is not going to happen to him. Now everything is more transparent through social networks, it is impossible for them to screw up a player.
