🎥 Former legend Bauza gets special visit amid illness battle | OneFootball

A Libertadores champion with LDU (2008) and San Lorenzo (2014), and after a spell at São Paulo, Edgardo “Patón” Bauza experienced special moments at his home. 

Now a former coach at 68, he is facing a silent battle against frontotemporal dementia (FTD), a condition that affects personality, behavior, and language function.

He lives in Quito, Ecuador, and welcomed members of the club with which he also shares plenty of history: Rosario Central, which is there to face Independiente del Valle in the Libertadores. 

Bauza had two spells with Los Canallas as a center-back (1977-1982, 1986-1989 and 1992), totaling 332 matches and 82 goals, and he was a two-time Argentine champion.

He also made history there as a coach. After runner-up finishes in 1998 and 1999, he returned in 2018 to end Rosario’s 23-year title drought by winning the Copa Argentina.

That trophy was the last of his career on the touchline.

The reunion arranged by the club was full of emotion. Bauza received jerseys, a plaque, and saw again the trophy celebrated in 2018.

The diagnosis of frontotemporal dementia came in 2021. He lives in the already mentioned Ecuadorian capital with his wife, Maritza Gallardo.

Bauza’s story was already told in the documentary "The Summit of Life, the Value of Memory,” released last year and produced by the TASE Foundation (Transcending with Love, Service and Excellence), an Ecuadorian organization that helps people with Alzheimer’s and other dementias.

"Edgardo no longer communicates verbally, but he is always in a good mood. He lives in peace, and that also brings us peace," Maritza says in one excerpt.

Bauza also played for Junior Barranquilla, Independiente, and Vera Cruz, and he was a World Cup runner-up with Argentina in 1990.

He was in charge of São Paulo when he was approached to take over the Argentina national team in August 2016, leaving Tricolor after 48 matches and the Libertadores semifinal that same year.

He also had spells on the bench with Vélez, Colón, Sporting Cristal, Al-Nassr, and the national teams of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia.

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.