The following English translation was generated with the assistance of artificial intelligence and has been reviewed and edited by our team for accuracy and clarity.
[Gustavo Grabia]: The protected witness, who was Darío Vesselizza Randi, shows up, and then when he talks, there’s, let’s say, a kind of scalpel-cold chill that runs down the backs, mostly of the defense lawyers, going: «Hey, I think after this, we’ve lost. «
[Silvia Viñas]: Darío Vesselizza Randi, the Boca barra member turned informant, was the key witness at the trial. His statements seem to have sealed the fate of the barra members charged with the double homicide and with the injuries to the other fans. There’s enough detail to convict several of them. But what will happen to el Abuelo, the boss of Boca’s barra, is yet to be decided. He’s accused of leading a criminal association, that is, a group created to commit crimes. Something that had started many years earlier. Journalist Gustavo Grabia told us about it several episodes ago, and it’s worth going over again: in the early ’80s, Boca’s barra brava was led by Quique El Carnicero, and little by little el Abuelo began to challenge him.
[Gustavo Grabia]: The difference is that José Barritta sees there’s a business there, and on top of that, Quique kept all the power for the La Boca neighborhood and didn’t share it.
[Silvia Viñas]: Quique collected money from the players and from the businesses near the stadium, and he collected tickets. But he and his inner circle kept the entire loot for themselves. And the barra members who were left out weren’t happy. But no one dared to speak up for everyone. Until el Abuelo started putting together his plan to stage a coup.
[Gustavo Grabia]: He starts building relationships with the other factions of Boca’s barra brava: the one from San Martín, the one from Lomas de Zamora, the ones from Banfield and Temperley, the one from Flores in the capital. Well, those from different neighborhoods, each with its own leaders, and over a year and a half he built an army.
[Silvia Viñas]: And he promised them that with him as head of the barra, there would be enough money for everyone. Because he understood that Boca could generate business on another scale. El Abuelo took power from Quique in 1981, by force. And the future he imagined for La 12 would be fueled by fear.
[Gustavo Grabia]: So he says, «Hey, OK, there are concession vendors here who sell food inside the stadium, but also food outside the stadium. Well, you want to work in peace? You’re going to have to leave some money for the barra.» With Barritta, they start charging everyone selling caps, flags, and headbands. Street parking gets a fixed rate set by the barra; it’s a new business that Barritta creates.
[Silvia Viñas]: Everyone who wanted to do business around and inside the stadium had to hand over a share of what they took in. El Abuelo also leaned on the club’s officials to give the barra tickets. And the coaches and players contributed money. But under his leadership, La 12 didn’t stop there. They had to come up with more businesses to sustain a structure that kept growing and growing.
[Gustavo Grabia]: With the barra’s first profits, he bought taxis. Boca’s barra even thought of having a taxi fleet to give to some barra members so they could work and live off that money.
[Silvia Viñas]: And so the barra became a group that never stopped collecting. Many people were extorted and handed over money against their will, but they had never dared to speak out until the trial for the double homicide of the River fans.
From Central Series and Radio Ambulante Studios, I’m Silvia Viñas, and this is «Superclásico 94.»
Episode 9: The Conviction
Boca’s barra had already gained legitimacy and power years before the murders of Ángel Delgado and Walter Vallejos. We heard about it at the beginning of the series, but to understand José Barritta’s fate at the trial, it’s worth going over some of those details and adding new ones…
Remember: el Abuelo was so powerful that he led the barras of all other Argentine clubs at the World Cups. Like the one in Mexico in ’86, when Argentina’s national team won the title. He did the same at the World Cup in Italy, ’90.
[Gustavo Grabia]: It was a barra that had, let’s say, not only the popular fervor that went with them. You have to put yourself in that era, I mean, an Argentine barra in the stadiums following the national team with the players’ support. It was a barra that had a lot of public support, even if that might seem strange today.
[Silvia Viñas]: Mariano Pagella continues the story.
[Mariano Pagella]: A barra with public support. Let’s examine that phrase. By the early ’90s, La 12 is a well-oiled machine. Its troops are in line, with no divisions. It has ties to the police and to political circles. The club’s officials need it to fire up the team in the stadium. And now this «trustworthy» barra with many businesses decides to take another step, one that lets it make all its activities look legal.
[Gustavo Grabia]: The Fundación Número 12 was a creation, actually, it’s a creation of Boca’s barra, but on the advice of others, who tell them: «Hey, a lot, a lot of money is starting to come in that you’re starting to receive from illegal stuff. You have to launder it somehow.»
[Mariano Pagella]: But setting up a foundation is a cumbersome process. To get around the bureaucracy, you need help from people with power and connections. And el Abuelo knows those people.
[Gustavo Grabia]: That came to el Abuelo through a political recommendation. They went in as if through an absolutely VIP window, to the point that only three months passed from when they submitted the proposal to when they were granted legal status.
[Mariano Pagella]: And that’s not all.
[Gustavo Grabia]: They were granted legal status on April 3, 1991. Why do I point this out? Because it’s the same day as Boca’s birthday. There were certain symbols, sort of, that made you realize they were getting special treatment.
[Mariano Pagella]: That’s how close relations between the barra and the state are at the time. Listed as president of the Fundación El Jugador Número 12 is, of course, José Barritta. Its headquarters is at an address in Villa Lugano, on Araujo Street, which is the Di Zeo family’s house. Di Zeo. Remember that name, because it’s going to be very important at the end of this story. When a foundation is created, it has to define its economic purpose. But La 12 has a hard time explaining what that’s going to be.
[Gustavo Grabia]: What they listed as their stated purpose was charitable aid to anyone who needed it. It’s undefined. It’s completely undefined charitable aid.
[Mariano Pagella]: Think about this. A barra that extorts and attacks rival fans, with members who have done time in prison, suddenly sets up an institution to do charity work. And the state signs off on all of it. And so the Fundación El Jugador Número 12 begins its activities: a toy giveaway for abandoned children, a campaign handing out HIV-prevention pamphlets. But the philanthropy doesn’t stop there. On match days at La Bombonera, el Abuelo goes down onto the field and, in front of the whole stadium, presents awards to the club officials and players who donated money to the barra.
[Gustavo Grabia]: The biggest contribution had come from Roberto Cabañas, who was playing for Boca at the time. There were contributions from Márcico, from Alberto José Márcico. There were contributions from Blas Giunta. From the squad, as I remember, those were the three most important.
[Mariano Pagella]: Márcico, Cabañas, and Giunta are key players on the team, and the ones with the closest ties to the barra.
[Gustavo Grabia]: At that time, Boca had a sort of split in the squad. There were the hawks and the doves. It was like Cabañas and Márcico’s group on one side, and Navarro Montoya’s group, to put it that way, on the other.
[Mariano Pagella]: Carlos Navarro Montoya is another Boca player from that era. And he’s one of those who don’t contribute money to the barra.
[Gustavo Grabia]: When you looked at the list of contributors, the ones who contributed the most were the ones who were supposedly involved in that, in that fight, under the name of los Halcones -the hawks.
[Mariano Pagella]: But the list of those who handed over money is longer.
[Gustavo Grabia]: Then some officials had contributed. Some concession vendors from all of Boca’s stands had contributed. And a major TV host too.
[Mariano Pagella]: Most of them are the ones who later receive «charitable» offerings from La 12. But that honeymoon between the barra, the officials, and some players won’t last forever. To begin with, around that same time, drugs hit La 12’s stands hard. Some of the men closest to el Abuelo, like Bolita Niponi, fall into a spiral of drug use that makes them unpredictable. And so…
[Gustavo Grabia]: There was a whole scaffolding, sort of, that was creaking, mostly because soccer violence was becoming front-page news every match Sunday. Every Sunday there was an incident, and the vast majority of the incidents were caused by Boca’s barra.
[Mariano Pagella]: And in some of those fights with other barras, firearms started being used.
[Gustavo Grabia]: And that, well, gave the police and the government a headache.
[Mariano Pagella]: Nobody wants violence. Especially violence that’s out of control. Different sectors of political power and club leadership start demanding that el Abuelo restore order.
[Gustavo Grabia]: El Abuelo would sort of say, «I’m going to control them.» He’d get the order. El Abuelo would say, «Don’t worry, I can handle it.» But then he’d lose control of things. And at the same time, that gradually makes him lose, sort of, the political backing that covered for all these kinds of businesses of Boca’s barra.
[Mariano Pagella]: El Abuelo and La 12 are losing the support that gave them impunity with those in power. They’re becoming too uncomfortable and unpredictable. We’ll take a break and be right back.
[Mariano Pagella]: So, in the early ’90s, el Abuelo’s barra quickly goes from having legitimacy and support from the public, from officials, and from politicians, to being an empire that’s teetering because of violence. That’s when the police stop treating the barra the way they used to.
[Gustavo Grabia]: In every act of violence, –and there were many, and very ferocious ones–, what had been happening in previous years, when nobody from Boca ended up at the police station, changed.
[Mariano Pagella]: Now even the barra members close to el Abuelo were being arrested.
[Gustavo Grabia]: Maybe they’d get out afterward, but they were going to end up with a police record.
[Mariano Pagella]: Meanwhile, the courts ask the federal police to prepare a report on the Fundación Número 12. And that report describes the barra’s activities in detail.
[Gustavo Grabia]: Extortion, ticket scalping, parking rackets, illegal merchandise, and, well, all of La 12’s businesses.
[Mariano Pagella]: At another time, the report would have been watered down or lost in some drawer, but now there’s a political decision to move forward.
[Gustavo Grabia]: And from then on, the foundation loses its legal status and is dismantled.
[Mariano Pagella]: The government shuts down the foundation in ’93, just two years after it was created. And this decision offers a clue about what was in store for el Abuelo.
So, it’s June ’93. El Abuelo tries to hold firm as the leader of La 12, but some of his barra members are increasingly out of control. It’s less than a year until the superclásico of April 30, 1994. And between now and that day, all kinds of things will happen.
There were incidents at several South American qualifying matches for the ’94 World Cup, but the most serious one took place on November 17. We’re talking about a national team match played at River’s stadium. It was the Argentine national team’s playoff, not a domestic club tournament match. And not only that: it marked the return of Maradona, who had stepped away from the national team after losing the final of Italia ’90.
Remember that at that time, Boca’s barra leads the barras of all the clubs when Argentina plays.
[Gustavo Grabia]: A huge mess broke out outside the stadium that caused el Abuelo a lot of trouble.
[Mariano Pagella]: Newspapers at the time reported that a battle between barras bravas from Boca, River, and Racing left four people with gunshot wounds, more than 400 arrested, and 12 police officers hospitalized. Argentina qualifies for the World Cup, but the victory is somewhat overshadowed by the clash in the streets.
[Gustavo Grabia]: It was all madness. All that, that pile of incidents is what made, made them realize that it was hard to keep propping up el Abuelo, because el Abuelo could no longer control, uh, his people.
[Mariano Pagella]: With all that in the background, we come to the battle of Desaguadero, which we told you about in Episode 3, when the barras of Boca and Independiente crossed paths in Mendoza in February 1994. There, it isn’t just beatings with sticks, punches, and people running. Hundreds of shots are counted. The result: fifteen wounded from Boca and two from Independiente.
[Gustavo Grabia]: Notice that at that point, el Abuelo still had some protection, because barra members are taken away under arrest, and el Abuelo isn’t held.
[Mariano Pagella]: Well, they do arrest him, but they release him the next day. For some reason, they still give him one more chance. But he’d use it up less than three months later.
[Gustavo Grabia]: You could see what was coming, which in the end is the murders, a very short time later, of Delgado and Vallejos.
[Mariano Pagella]: And that brings us back to the 1997 trial, which started because of that crime. As we saw in the previous episode, the fate of the barra members who took part is already clear. But it’s still to be decided what will happen with el Abuelo, accused of extortion and of leading a criminal association. So now the alleged victims of that extortion are going to parade before the judges: officials, players, celebrities. Not all of them are going to say the same thing.
[Archival audio]:
Journalist: Mr. Alegre, have you received el Abuelo in your office?
Antonio Alegre: No, that’s a lie, ma’am. I had el Abuelo over at my house one day.
Journalist: Uh-huh, and why did you have him over at your house?
Alegre: To neutralize everything that was going on at Boca Juniors for three and a half, four years.
[Mariano Pagella]: This is the voice of Antonio Alegre, who was Boca’s president at the time. A reporter interviewed him on the street when he went to testify in ’94 about the superclásico murders. When Alegre took office as the club’s president in ’85, el Abuelo was already the undisputed leader of La 12, and in those first years, Alegre had to run the club by negotiating with him.
[Archival audio]:
Journalist: Was one way of neutralizing things giving them, for example, 250 tickets?
Alegre: No, ma’am, in life, things get worked out through dialogue.
Journalist: Then why did you give them the 250 tickets?
[Mariano Pagella]: This last question the journalist asks him is exactly the one that Alegre and Boca’s vice president, Carlos Heller, will have to answer at the trial. What they gave the barra and why they gave it.
Alegre and Heller are businessmen. By 1997, they’re no longer club officials. They left their posts in ’95. The barra’s relationship with each of them was very different. Alegre had a more… cordial bond. Heller, not so much. Because the barra wasn’t very fond of his Jewish background or of the fact that he was a member of the Communist Party. And the barras, for the most part, sympathized with Peronism, the party in power at the time, which was more on the nationalist side.
On the afternoon of April 11, 1997, Alegre and Heller arrived at the courthouse to give their testimony. After a few hearings with smaller audiences, that day the courtroom is almost full again. The vice president, Heller, testifies first. He says that he and Alegre had tensions with La 12 from the very moment they won the 1986 election to run the club. That on the night of the vote count, the barra even threw rocks at them.
[Gustavo Grabia]: What’s more, Heller says one of his daughters ends up injured in that attack.
[Mariano Pagella]: A rock cut her left eyebrow. It was a warning of how things were going to be. The thing is, the barra didn’t want Alegre and Heller as officials. La 12’s preferred candidate was Alberto Armando, who had been president in Quique El Carnicero’s day. Next, Heller told the judges how La 12 constantly pressured them to «donate» stadium tickets.
[Gustavo Grabia]: And he even gives an account of a violent incident when they decide not to give them any more, or not to give them a certain number, because Boca was in very bad shape financially, and how they attacked back.
[Mariano Pagella]: That attack took place at the stadium entrance. There, a group of barra members surrounded Heller to intimidate him, beating bass drums, and one of them came up to him and hit him in the face. When he looked for help, nobody helped him. The police officers who had been in the area had disappeared.
At the trial, Heller goes on to describe how the barra wrecked his car several times, and how the tension over the tickets escalated so much that in 1990 the club’s board of directors gave in and decided to give the barra members what they had been demanding so insistently.
Heller testifies that it was Alegre, Boca’s president, who proposed this capitulation and that he was against it but went along with the decision. At the end of his testimony, he makes it clear that they didn’t give the tickets out of «goodwill.»
[Gustavo Grabia]: The court later gives that testimony a great deal of weight, because it sees it as extortion and as part of how the criminal association operated.
[Mariano Pagella]: Now we have to see what Alegre says about all this. Alegre begins his testimony with this sentence: «I have no enemies, only friends. I was president starting in 1986. Before that, I used to go to the cheap stands next to the barra, so I know them well. They’re different from ordinary fans; they’re stronger than others, they cheer the team on more, and they fire up the crowd.»
[Gustavo Grabia]: He makes it clear that it’s almost a gesture of goodwill toward the boys, and that this group deserves special treatment apart from the other club members, and that’s why they were given tickets and provided with buses to go to away games.
[Mariano Pagella]: Quite different from what Heller had said.
[Gustavo Grabia]: Alegre gives a statement that, to me, is self-incriminating, because he admits they give the barra tickets, but no, but at no point does he say this is done in exchange for, or so as not to be afraid, or because they were being threatened.
[Mariano Pagella]: When the prosecutor asks him about the decision to give the barra tickets, Alegre says he had invited el Abuelo to his house, and that in a long conversation he decided to give him between 200 and 250 tickets for barra members who had no way to pay.
The person who was Boca’s president in 1997 also takes the stand: Mauricio Macri. He may sound familiar: he was president of Argentina from 2015 to 2019. But before that, he had a successful career as a club executive. In ’97, when the judges asked him if he knew the members of La 12, Macri said: «We made contact with several groups, but not with one called La 12 or whatever.» A strange statement, to say the least. It’s one thing for him to say he didn’t give them tickets. It’s another for him not to know who they are.
Then it’s the turn of Boca’s players and coaches. Curiously, Carlos Bilardo and César Menotti, two coaches who won the World Cup with the national team and who always had an irreconcilable feud, agree in their testimony at the trial. For both of them, Barritta is, quote, «a peaceful person, just another soccer fan.» Bilardo even says he’s a «friend» of Barritta’s, and that he often had dinner with him.
[Gustavo Grabia]: All the players, former players, they all talked like: «Oh, well, the contributions to the barra were voluntary.» They acknowledged the contributions, they acknowledged the collections. But they always said no, that, at least at the trial, that it didn’t, didn’t come from the barra members extorting them, but that it was voluntary among all the players.
[Mariano Pagella]: Former Boca idol and fan favorite Alberto Márcico is also called to testify. He’s one of the «hawks» Gustavo Grabia mentioned earlier, that is, from the group of players closest to the barra. Márcico testifies that he helps out the barra «just to be nice.» Other players go before the judges and say something quite similar.
[Gustavo Grabia]: I understand the players, because in the end it’s them who are there every day, right? Even if you had him at the trial, uh, afterward the ones who were outside were friends of these guys. I don’t know, you have to train and look him in the face. I don’t know, you’d want the players to testify differently, but considering the web of complicity the barra members have, it was unlikely that was going to happen.
[Mariano Pagella]: But the most damning testimony comes from those with the least power to stand up to the barra members, the ones who stand to pay the highest price.
[Gustavo Grabia]: The testimony from the concession vendors at the stands is important. I never thought they were going to say they were extorted into handing things over to the barra.
[Mariano Pagella]: It’s those who run the food stands at the stadium. They’re at the club all day, and they could face retaliation. But they do it anyway.
[Gustavo Grabia]: They said it clearly –the guy who had the little food and drink stands there used to be at the stadium, those sheet-metal stands– they said no, they didn’t give voluntarily, they gave because they had to give, because otherwise they’d smash up their whole stand. They said: «They extort us. They smash up everything if we don’t give to them.» And I think that was something, let’s say, that was given much more weight than believing the player had done it of his own free will.
[Mariano Pagella]: In other words, according to Grabia, the judges gave more weight to the testimony of the stand vendors than to the statements of the players and coaches.
[Gustavo Grabia]: And today, when players get leaned on, they get leaned on and then they don’t testify that they’ve been leaned on. Except when they leave the club, much later, but they never tell the courts that.
[Mariano Pagella]: One last break, and when we come back, the fate of the barra members and el Abuelo.
[Mariano Pagella]: After two months of hearings, we finally reach Friday, May 16, 1997, the day the verdict will be read. Once again, the courtroom is packed. Relatives of the victims and of the barra members, several Boca barras bravas, dozens of journalists, and members of the public settle onto the long wooden benches. It’s the hardest moment. Everything has been said; nothing can be changed. The judges’ decision won’t satisfy everyone.
[Marcelo Parrilli]: I think many of them didn’t think they were going to be convicted.
[Mariano Pagella]: This is Marcelo Parrilli, the lawyer for Ángel Delgado, Walter Vallejos, and two of the wounded. And he adds something that helps explain what the barra members were expecting that day.
[Marcelo Parrilli]: Even if they know they’re guilty, people accused in a criminal proceeding normally deny it. Then, over the course of that proceeding, it becomes more pronounced, and in the end, they almost end up convinced that they didn’t do anything, or that what they did is much less serious. Or that what they did, which on top of being much less serious, couldn’t be proven against them.
[Mariano Pagella]: Because of that mix of denial, doubt, and anxiety about the verdict, a scene takes place that Parrilli will never forget. There are only a few minutes left before the judges enter the courtroom, and one of the defendants approaches him.
[Marcelo Parrilli]: Across the aisle, where the defendants sat, was Cáceres Romero.
[Mariano Pagella]: Freddy Cáceres Romero is Bolita Niponi, one of La 12’s most violent members.. Accused of shooting at the fans riding in the truck.
[Marcelo Parrilli]: At one point he calls me over. At first I didn’t want to talk to him. Besides, his defense lawyer was there. He asks me how I saw the trial. And I tell him, «No, look, I can’t tell you that, um, how I see it. You have your defense lawyer, who must have already explained everything to you, must have advised you.»
[Mariano Pagella]: Bolita Niponi replies that his lawyer assured him he’d walk out free and go home that afternoon. And he asks Parrilli again to please tell him whether he thinks the same.
[Marcelo Parrilli]: I tell him I see it differently.
[Mariano Pagella]: The conversation ends there. Neither of them says another word. There isn’t much time anyway. The judges enter the courtroom, and everyone has to stand. After a few seconds, the murmuring dies down.
Judge Poerio de Arslanian begins reading. She explains a few formal details and says that she rejects the request by the accused barra members’ lawyers to declare null the testimony of Darío Vesselizza Randi, the barra member turned informant. That news is a prelude to what’s coming.
As if trying to downplay it with her monotone voice, the judge reaches the most anticipated moment. And she reads the first names: «Corbacho» Villagarcía, «Manzanita» Santoro, Marcelo Aravena, Bolita Niponi, and «Gomina» Almirón are convicted of homicide, attempted homicide, and criminal association, and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
[Fernando Scalone]: As they named each one, there were shouts of: «This can’t be. How can they do this to him? It wasn’t him.» Shouts from their own relatives.
[Mariano Pagella]: Fernando Scalone, Walter Vallejos’s friend, still gets emotional today remembering that moment.
Another barra member, Danny Silva, gets 15 years, because he’s convicted of homicide but acquitted of criminal association. With «Uruguayo» Bellusci Martínez and «Chino» Allende, it’s the other way around: they’re acquitted of the murders but convicted of criminal association. They get 5 years in prison.
Now only el Abuelo is left. Barritta waits in the same seat he sat in for the whole trial. First, the judge acquits him of extorting the stadium vendors. El Abuelo’s relatives are relieved.
The room goes silent again, and the judge continues. She says the court has decided to «convict» Barritta of criminal association, as its leader or organizer, and of extorting Boca’s officials. But the hardest blow comes a moment later, when the sentence is heard: el Abuelo gets 13 years in prison. Much more than he expected. It’s confirmation that they’ve cut him loose. This time, nobody is going to be able to save him.
[Gustavo Grabia]: I think José Barritta is surprised, because it wasn’t what they were expecting. Lawyers always promise things that don’t pan out later. Since he’d been promised they’d give him between six and seven years, and he had already spent some time in prison, which meant that, at most, he’d have a few months left before he could get out.
[Mariano Pagella]: But that’s not how it went.
[Gustavo Grabia]: Barritta’s face said a lot about his disappointment. Because on top of that, it was the disappointment of someone who had betrayed his pals, supposedly to go free, and they slapped him with 13 years.
[Fernando Scalone]: When they finished handing down everyone’s sentence and the gavel came down, we hugged each other, I remember. We cried and cried.
[Mariano Pagella]: It was the moment the families, the victims’ friends, and the survivors had waited for for so long.
[Fernando Scalone]: We were crying while the courtroom was full of shouting and sobbing, but from the people who knew they were going to spend most of their lives in jail.
[Gustavo Grabia]: The day of the closing arguments, look, we all knew they were going to be convicted. But it’s one thing to know it and another to witness it, to see the reactions of people who are going to be sentenced to extremely long prison terms. I remember that the relatives of some of those who were convicted broke down more than the convicted men themselves. There were some who looked on defiantly the whole time.
[Fernando Scalone]: They had to get us out because they wanted to attack us, and with a whole courtroom against us, there were three, four of us. They put us in a little room, because when we went out, they spat at us and insulted us. And they put us in a little room with his uncle, me, his sister. So, anyway, there we hugged each other, and we thought justice had been done.
[Mariano Pagella]: That same night, the seven convicted men go back to prison. But now to serve their sentences. El Abuelo is transferred to Devoto prison, about nine miles from the courthouse. The strategy that had taken him to the top of La 12 was the one that brought him down. The money that had helped him wrest the barra away from Quique El Carnicero later became a need with no limits, his Achilles’ heel.
His reign was over.
That same night, Boca also played Banfield at La Bombonera. In the middle of the stands, what’s left of the barra leaves an empty space in protest of the verdict. They chant against the national government and against River, and they call for the release of all the jailed members of La 12.
The outcome of the trial doesn’t just put el Abuelo behind bars. All the members of his inner circle, his lieutenants, are also in prison. La 12 is left without anyone to lead it from that main paravalanchas in the stands.
[Gustavo Grabia]: A stand like Boca’s can’t be left to fend for itself, because what’s going to happen is a war to see who keeps that loot.
[Mariano Pagella]: As always when power is up for grabs in a barra, things won’t be resolved peacefully. We’ll meet La 12’s new leader and find out what he learned from el Abuelo’s fall.
[Gustavo Grabia]: If someone strayed from the line he drew, didn’t react, and made another mistake, he’d cut him loose, something el Abuelo had never done.
[Mariano Pagella]: The escalating violence over control of La 12, how it evolved and its impact on Argentine soccer to this day, and the final fate of José Barritta.
[Marcela Mora y Araujo]: When he gets out of prison, they invited me to a barbecue to welcome him.
[Mariano Pagella]: All this in the final episode of Superclásico 94.
[Silvia Viñas]: Superclásico 94 is a podcast from Central, the series channel of Radio Ambulante Studios, and is part of the My Cultura podcast network from iHeart Radio.
This series was produced by Mariano Pagella, Alejandro Marinelli, and Sergio Renna.
The editors were Pablo Argüelles, Daniel Alarcón, and me.
Fact-checking is by Ana Prieto.
Mariano did the sound design, with original music by Nicolas Pagella, who also composed the series’ theme music. Martín Cruz was in charge of sound mixing and mastering.
The series’ graphics and art direction are by Diego Corzo. Digital production was done by Andrés Centeno with Óscar Luna.
Business development and strategic partnerships were led by Camilo Jiménez Santofimio. And Julián Santos and Eric Spiegelman provided legal support.
Carolina Guerrero is the CEO of Radio Ambulante Studios.
At iHeart, the executive producers are Arlene Santana and Leo Gomez.
Radio Ambulante Studios produces and mixes its podcasts with Hindenburg PRO.
You can follow us on social media as centralseriesRA and subscribe to our newsletter at centralpodcast.audio.
I’m Silvia Viñas. Thanks for listening.