Faustino Asprilla has often compared his life with a wonderful dream. It is not difficult to see why.
From the football field to the nightclubs of northern Italy, Tyneside and beyond, the Colombian Rebel has always had the ability to make the very unlikely ordinary seems.
Who else would mark the debut of his club by enjoying a glass of wine prior to the game before making a Cruyff turn to establish a vital equalizer within a few minutes of arriving as a substitute for the second half, as Asprilla did to The few hours to join Newcastle United?
Who else would inform to train using nothing more than a bugle, a snorkeling and a pair of fins? Or invite the entire bars back to their place after the last orders? Or teach a horse to play football while wearing a huge dinosaur costume?
Given the innumerable myths that have reached the Asprilla Asprilla career, it can be difficult to separate the truth from fiction. It is not true that he accidentally shot his own horse at his home in Tulua, Western Colombia; It is true that during a spell at the University of Chile he triggered a false gun during training in an attempt to make his teammates work harder. As for whether I was really inside that large T-Rex outfit, we will probably never know.
If Asprilla, now 55, has a super power, is the ability to live life in its own terms. The exception that the rule proved came in 1992, when the National Atlético left, the Colombian team for which he scored 32 goals in 75 appearances after joining from Cucuta Deportivo in 1989, to join next to the series A Parma.
It was a secret over low heat that Atlético Nacional was Pablo Escobar's toy, the most notorious drug trafficking in the world, and throughout Asprilla's reputation as a non -conformist, even he acknowledges that the transfer would not have passed without the voice of Escobar .
“Escobar certainly had National Medellín in the heart,” Asprilla told La Gazzetta dello Sport. “And at that time, nothing was done without its consent.”
Faustino Asprill
Asprilla, who is now 55 years old, was popular for his character in free spirit and his style of play out of place. It is seen in this 2013, in the presentation of a commemorative shirt for the old Parma Club.
Asprill
An improper talent whose free spirit character was reflected in his work, Asprilla often blocked the horns with Nevio Scala, the Parma manager whose highly tactical approach of the game was disagree with the fist style of the striker.
“He talked about tactics and did not understand anything,” Asprilla said. 'I needed the ball to fun, run, to overcome the opponent. Imagine if I care about 3-5-2 or descending marks.
'One day, he asked me to run for half an hour. I threw his shoes and said: “I'm not Forrest Gump, I'm a footballer.” And I left the locker room.
However, Asprilla was more than a simple show. He would continue to win three European trophies under Scala, a room would continue after he briefly joined the club in 1998, and then added a victory of Coppa Italia to the title of the Colombian League that he obtained with Atlético Nacional in 1999.
In England, of course, Asprilla is better remembered for its two -year stay in Tyneside. Newcastle had nine clarity points at the top of the Premier League when their private plane landed at Teesside airport in February 1996, and some keep up to this day that the incorporation of mid -season of £ 6.7 million to half From the season to Kevin Keegan artists altered the balance of the team and cost the Magpies the title that year.
Even the former Newcastle midfielder, Keith Gillespie, who lost his place in the initial alignment to accommodate the new child, is among those who suggested that the arrival of Asprilla did not apply to the team. It is a vision that tends to be short of roller among club fans.
Asprilla shows with his ex -wife Catalina Cortés, a Colombian partner with whom he had a son, Santiago, Centro, in 1992
Asprilla joined a Newcastle team led by Kevin Keegan, on the right, in February 1996. The URACAS had nine clear points at the top of the Premier League table at that time, but they finished the second
Asprilla explodes a condom during a presentation of its 'Tino' contraceptive line in Bogotá, the Colombian capital, in October 2016. “Sex has always been important to me,” says Asprilla
“It is wrong to say that his restless firm in the '96,” says Jamie Smith, Newcastle Fanzine The Mag Team seemed to go when Man United returned a long streak of Lucky 1-0 Wins.
“There were games in that race, such as his debut against Boro or West Ham at home, where Tino was the bright light in the team, and only remembered with love.”
It is not surprising, since it would be difficult to imagine a player with more appropriate qualities for the side of Keegan style, since the former club manager hastened to point out.
“To blame him for our disappearance in the championship is scandalous,” Keegan said. 'I think there was much more than that; I think if people analyze it, they will see it. Many players did not play well from the moment he arrived.
In any case, it was Asprilla who could have been forgiven for asking what he had gotten. Attracted to the Northeast by the promise of a life by the sea, he was received by a snowstorm upon his arrival, instantly dissipating the hopes that he had to navigate yachts and relax on the beach.
However, Asprilla quickly took the club already his playgrounds, forming a close link with Alan Shearer and winning respect for the locker room.
“There have been some characters with those stripes (in black and white) over the years, but Asprilla is alone when it comes to madness,” says Smith.
'Even in a team known for his rebel approach and his Knight football, Tino highlighted a mile. His wild drip skills and extravagant celebrations were obvious from their debut.
'He was always a very individual player, and there were games in which he lit the place, then other times when the team did not seem to know what he was doing. Fortunately, the opposition either.
A smiling asprilla raised the UEFA Cup after the aggregate victory of Parma 2-1 over Juventus in 1995
Sometimes, Asprilla's mischief were enraged: a case came in question when his shirt was removed and lifted it high on a corner flag after scoring in a UEFA Cup game against Metz, obtaining a reserve that He achieves the suspension for his problems, but the affection in which they held it was close to Universal.
“He was the life and soul of the team,” former defender Warren Barton They told you the parts of the set. 'We were a very close group and he entered and joined that. He joined very quickly; His smile every morning was contagious. You could always hear his voice. He had an interpreter, but his English was better than he left like that.
Amado by colleagues and fans equally, Asprilla in turn hugged the warmth of the city, especially that of the female population.
“I don't know how many brides had in Newcastle,” Asprilla admitted. “At first, I didn't even understand what they said.”
While Keegan largely tolerated Asprilla's inclination for a party, Kenny Dalglysh, who became a manager after Keegan's resignation in January 1997, took a more pragmatic vision of both the team and the players that would fit her.
Dalglysh 'change in a more defensive style meant that Asprilla days were numbered, but there was still time for the leader to enjoy his best moment in a black and white shirt.
That came on September 17, 1997, when Asprilla marked the debut of the Newcastle Champions League by scoring a hat-trick in a dramatic 3-2 victory over Barcelona. Notoriously, it hardly happened.
“Dalliish was not going to play me, because I had returned late from Colombia and I was angry,” said Asprilla, for whom the schedule was never a strong point. 'So I had sex with my girlfriend before the game, which I never did because I thought I had bad luck. I never prepared correctly. God knows what would have happened if he had done it!
Briefly married to Catalina Cortés, a Colombian partner with whom she had a son, Santiago, in 1992, Asprilla has admitted frankly that she is not cut by a monogamy life.
“I'm not made for fidelity, life as a couple,” said Asprilla. 'I like women: as soon as I see one, I run after her. It is the same now that I am no longer a child. At that time I thought about football, having fun, money.
In these days, Asprilla earns life selling sugar cane produced on its farm in Tulua and selling brand condoms, a company that has its origins in a malfunction of the costumes that suffered during a friendly match against Chile in 1993.
The reputation he acquired after that incident led to a naked appearance on the cover of a Colombian magazine, and in 2013 he was even offered a contract to make adult films.
From there, it was simply a short step to make its characteristic 'Tino' condoms, one of the most recent iterations of which it is an inspired flavor version, he says, by the aroma of the marshes.
“Sex has always been important to me,” he says. “I am asprilla: a lot of sex, without rules and pure life.”