Player of the Year. Two rankings existed and they vastly differed from each other – the one run by Venezuelan newspaper permitted players based in Europe and in it the big stars dominated – Maradona was number 1. However, the ranking run by the Uruguayan newspaper El Pais had real recognition and it was the official ranking somewhat. In it only those playing in South America were included and because of that only one player appeared among the top three in both rankings: Rene Higuita (Colombia and Atletico Nacional) was 3rd both times. In El Pais classification he shared third position with his compatriot and teammate Leonel Alvarez, both having 25 points. Second was Ruben da Silva (Uruguay and River Plate, Argentina) with 32 points and number one – Raul Vicente Amarilla (Paraguay and Olimpia) with 57 points.
Thus, he was proclaimed the South American player of 1990 – perhaps the least known outside the continent player to win the honour. It came to that because by now practically all great South American stars played in Europe and their absence made at the end a player from the top club side the winner – it was Olimpia (Asuncion), hence, the number one player was Paraguayan.
Strange enough, Amarilla was not new name at all – he was already 30-years old and had very impressive career already: he debuted for Sportivo Luqueno in his native city at 17, made impression and soon was signed by Real Zaragoza in Spain. Then he was loaned to Racing Santander for the 1980-81 season, again made good impression and next season he was full fledged Real Zaragoza player and become the second-best scorer of Spain in 1982-83. At that time perhaps he made a crucial mistake, leaving him to relative obscurity: he was invited to play for the Under-21 National team of Spain and accepted – and that is why he never played for Paraguay and as it turned out, not for the first team of Spain either. But he was still impressive and Barcelona hired him in 1985.
He played for Barcelona between 1985 and 1988 and then returned to Paraguay and signed with Olimpia (Asuncion), becoming not only a key player of the new and successful squad winning Copa Libertadores in 1990, but also one of the most beloved players by the fans. So, it was the success of Olimpia which brought him to international recognition at last. As a whole, so far he won the Spanish title with Barcelona (1984-85), the Spanish Cup with Barcelona (1987-88), was Paraguayan champion with Olimpia (1988), won Copa Libertadores, Supercopa Sudamericna, and Recopa Sudamericana in 1990 with Olimpia and those three last trophies propelled him to number one player of South America. Well deserved recognition.
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