The South American Player of the Year. A tough one – there were 2 separate awards, one organized by the Venezuelan newspaper ‘El Mundo’ and one organized by the Uruguayan ‘El Pais’. By Venezuelan rules any player was legible, no matter where playing. By Uruguayan rules – only those platying in South America. Since in both the winner was the same, no conflict this year, but let say that ‘El Pais’ had the upper hand in the long run and is more or less the recognized award. Let also add that the Venezuelan rules were somewhat ignored by the participating journalists: 12 players appeared in the top 10 and all of them played in South America – Maradona was doing great things in Europe, but… that was far away. Yubert Lemos of Nacional (Montevideo) was at hand and got votes unlike Maradona and other European-based stars. At the top was Ruben Paz, seconded by Hugo de Leon.
‘El Pais’ repeated the same order, but differed in number 3 – Brazilians Geovani (Vasco da Gama) and Taffarel (Inter Porto Alegre) shared 3rd place in ‘El Mundo’, but in ‘El Pais’ Jose Pinthos Saldanha (Nacional Montevideo) was 3rd – and he was not in the top 10 in ‘El Mundo’! Bias… in the Uruguayan classification three Uruguayans were the top 3. But may be not simply bias – South America was increasingly depleted from great stars, all of them moving to Europe. Add the other traditional destination – Mexico – and even second-raters were leaving South America in flocks. There were no longer great teams, where one can see 6-7 famous stars – now one could be lucky to see a team like Newell’s Old Boys with few young talents, who certainly will go to Europe before even becoming fully famous. Classifications were practically made from leftovers and it is interesting to see that no player of Newell’s Old Boys made the top 3 of ‘El Pais’ and even the top 10 of ‘El Mundo’. Such was the situation that one should take the awarded number one with a grain of salt.
Ruben Paz was voted number one in both ‘El Mundo’ and ‘El Pais’ voting. The attacking-playmaker Uruguayan was 29 years old, currently playing for Argentine Racing (Avellaneda). Famous player, no doubt, but consider his position – probably the most beloved and sacred number 10! Wonderful player, but not Maradona or Francescoli. Perhaps not close to Valderrama either. And even somewhat in decline – he came to Racing in 1986, practically dumped by the French Racing (Paris), for which he appeared only 6 times! His compatriot Francescoli moved to the same Racing (Paris) and immediately was a key mover and shaker star player in France – Paz meantime played back in South America.
He was no failure in Avellaneda – on the contrary, he immediately impressed and became perhaps the most important part of something looking like a revival of Racing after 20 years of painful struggle. But Racing did not win the Argentine championship and even did not play in the Copa Libertadores… such was the South American reality. The continental champions practically had only one great player, but Hugo de Leon played only half season because of his heavy injury. Newell’s Old Boys had only promising team in the eyes of the observers and their players were discounted. Other great South American clubs had a poor year and won nothing, so it was painful to select players from them – although it was may be reluctantly done. At the end Ruben Paz somewhat combined the traditional inclination of journalists to vote for strong players from currently successful clubs – Racing was relatively successful and Ruben Paz shined in it. Good for him, but perhaps Hugo de Leon deserved more to be voted Player of the Year – unfortunately, he was just a defender, not dazzling playmaker. And from the other side of spectrum – Romario also played only half the season in South America, moving to Holland in the summer and thus becoming illegible at least for ‘El Pais’. So Carlos Valderrama. So others. Nothing against Ruben Paz, but his major advantage seemingly was playing the whole season in South America.