Colón: How they reclaimed the Copa from Pelé’s Santos in 1964 | OneFootball

Diego Meloni, a historical historian and one of those responsible for recovering and valuing this trophy, spoke with ADN Gol and shared how the trophy was recovered.

Well, let's see, a bit about yesterday, you know we've been talking for a long time about this matter of being stubborn, of being persistent, of always wanting a little more in things. We've been saying recently that last year we recovered a ball that Santos Pelé brought during the 1964 tour, that we had obtained original photos of that match. Well, everything that is being added to the museum, and yesterday we were lucky, fortunate, after a couple of long weeks of negotiations, talks, back and forth, to be able to bring back home after 54 years of absence, nothing more and nothing less than the cup, the trophy that Colón won in the match against Santos on May 10, 1964. That famous cup in which Beto Poncio is seen lifting it after the match. So well, with great joy, with great satisfaction, well, with the emotion it generates because yesterday Ploto Gómez's family was there, Beto Ponzio's family was there, who had been a mascot in that match. So well, the truth is that it was an extremely important day, and for us to make this announcement and this discovery just two weeks after laying the cornerstone of the museum at the club fills us with pride. It really makes our chests swell with joy because this thing you mentioned at the beginning about how to tell things to new generations, well, we stopped just recounting and perhaps a theoretical and dialectical matter, or all the transfer of reality, to start shading that history of the match with Santos with concrete, compelling elements and objects that allow us to understand a bit more what that match meant for Colón and for the city of Santa Fe, right?

Well, look, I'll start from the beginning of what the story is about why the cup left the club and brothers, who did it pass to? Because I'll tell you the truth, it's like writing a book about this. In 1971, when Colón sold the Casa de San Jerónimo headquarters, you will remember that headquarters that ended up being sold to Don Emilio Carluz and that Colón lost part of its heritage. Well, what some leaders of the time did, thinking about the possibility that the trophies could be lost, sold, or stolen, things that have been very characteristic over time in a huge number of institutions, they decided to entrust the trophy to Donaldo Otecio, who had been governor of the province at the time of the match against Zafros, and the governor of the province when Colón was also born in 1965. The leaders understood that someone of the stature of Donaldo Otecio was the right person to be able to safeguard it until Colón could rebuild part of its social structure. Well, the fact is that Donaldo Otecio had it in his hands. When Donaldo Otecio passed away, his wife Norma Madera, who also received us last week in the city of Santo Tomé at her home to also give us Donaldo Otecio's lifetime membership card, decided to give it to Dr. Eladio Robiatti, a veterinary doctor who was the family's veterinarian. The cup passed into Robiatti's hands in 2006, and for 19 years he kept it in his custody. They told us that the idea was always to return it when the material conditions and especially the security guarantees were in place so that the trophy could return to the club and that nothing like what I just told you would happen, that someday someone would take it to their home or that the cup would be lost or that it wouldn't be given the historical value and rigor it needed. Well, this involved a couple of long weeks of talks, understandings, explaining a bit what we were doing with the subcommittee, and on Tuesday the story ended with the signing of a public deed at a notary's office, I mean, to understand a bit the seriousness given to this matter. And what you were asking me earlier, there are some photographic documents, there are images, even when José Benseñor, who was the treasurer of that commission, had it in his hands when Beto Pozo was lifting it. There are some photos in some newspapers of the time, so we have been allowed to quickly contact and also the cup bears an inscription also marked in such a way that it certifies that it is indeed the trophy that Colón obtained that year. Yes, in a very synthetic way. Yes, it's good, it's good. It's good. A book of many chapters, I tell you.

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