Ricardo Gareca, his soccer father, sees him as “a 10 like those that no longer exist”. Of those cracks of yesteryear, dribblers, rogues, with a lot of “neighborhood” on their feet. His cell phone received calls from two geniuses like him: Diego Armando Maradona when he wanted to take him to Gimnasia and Juan Román Riquelme to tempt him to leave Saudi Arabia for Boca Juniors. It is Christian Cueva (Huamachuco, 1991), the ’10’ of almost 70 meters who plays as if he were dancing a cumbia and keeps our dream of going to the World Cup in Qatar intact.
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What, today Christian be responsible for Peru is in a new playoff (his five goals and two assists gave us 21 of the 24 points we got in the Qualifiers) is not a matter of luck. Of talent, yes, but above all of a decision that changed his life completely at the age of 30: surrendering to the faith and work of José Neyra, the sports coach who, rather than preparing great soccer players, recovers them. that did with Cueva.
Neyra is a coach from Chimbota the same size as the steering wheel, with a slim build and the appearance of a Buddha who puts God before everything. In fact, Christian came into her arms at the end of 2020, days when she was not having a good time. He had left through the back door of Turkey’s Yeni Malatyaspor, his fourth club (after Krasnodar, Santos and Pachuca) after the 2018 World Cup in Russia and that failed penalty against Denmark that, in his own words, has marked him for life .
“It was a tough time for him and his family. That day we were with his parents waiting for him to come out of his bedroom at the concentration of the selection. He was very affected, so we made him listen to the music he likes the most: Chacalón, Agua Marina, Armonía 10. We made him understand that he, by the mere fact of being in the World Cup, was a winner, that he was the example of many provincials who conquered Lima first and then the world”recalls Augusto Sánchez, a Peruvian chef and one of the founders of the “Mi Barrunto” cevichería, but also one of those who knows Christian best as a person, since when he was still ‘Cuevita’ and played in Alianza Lima, back in 2014.
Getting out of the abyss is not easy, it takes willpower. And the ’10’ had it. “His representative called me and then I talked to him. Christian. She told me that she had been following my work on social networks, that she wanted to recover. I was very bad emotionally, depressed “, Neyra told us in a past interview. Today, in Arabia, at the moment he doesn’t have time to talk to the press, he is one hundred percent focused on giving us the best Cueva for the playoffs. And that is something to be thankful for.
“We have lived with him and his family since before Christmas. We talked at night. We work a lot spiritual part, an extremely important side. When we put God first, everything is possible”, indicates. The Cave of now, who in his latest Instagram posts mentions God, found peace.
sacrifice and faith
Jose Carlos Neira He was born in Chimbote and learned to kick a ball at the same time he learned to read or write. He grew up next to his grandmother because his parents were separated, that context fueled his need to approach God and ask him every night for that broken family. “I prayed a lot to have them together and thank God I did, they live with me. God doesn’t want us to lose faith, that’s why I always touch on the spiritual issue.”, told us in a talk. That unshakeable faith was passed on to Christian Cueva.
When they started working in Trujillo, at the beginning of 2021, the midfielder did not have a team and four dates of the Qualifiers had already been played: Peru had taken one point out of a possible twelve. What came next was a movie resurrection. ‘Aladdin’ signed for Al Fateh, a Saudi Arabian club that gave him the peace of mind he needed, and he took neyra to the other side of the world. Under an unbearable heat of 40 degrees and cumbia at full volume in the background, the ’10’ sacrificed hours and hours for one goal: to become physically stronger, a detail that in today’s football, the one that monitors diets, exercises and even hours of sleep in a laboratory, it counts and a lot.
“He always had talent, he was born with that. However, with Neyra he has enhanced his physical performance on the field. Now Christian travels between 11 and 13 kilometers per game. It’s like having a high-end car engine. He is running like a Ferrari”points out Augusto Sánchez.
In Al Fateh, the attacker has scored 16 goals in two seasons -the current campaign is not over yet-, the best record of his career. And in the national team, his seven direct participations (five goals, two assists) were from June 2021. In the pass he gives to Edison Flores, in the 85th minute, he got rid of Wilmar Barrios, a strong brand midfielder , for Peru to beat Colombia 1-0 in the Barranquilla oven.
Men of Honor
May 6, 2022, a couple of weeks ago. After playing 96 minutes with 40 degrees above, Christian Cueva y Joseph Neyra They do not hesitate to train on a kind of rubber flooring and with a giant pilates ball. “Unshakable faith. To persist”the two words used by the teacher to publish the video of the exercises that seek to work on the balance and leg strength of the midfielder, who in the Qualifiers had no problem holding a ball on his back against the Uruguayan Ronald Araujo, the Barcelona giant .
But Christian not only took the teacher neyra to Arabia thinking about the World Cup playoffs. With them was also Richard Palomino, the brother that Cueva met in San Martín at the age of 14, when he left Huamachuco to come to Lima. Richard’s family adopted little Christian, gave him a home, and he reciprocates whenever he can.
But Palomino is not just another guest in Arabia. He was a footballer and at the same time he studied to be a technical director. That is to say, the ‘Cholo’ has hired two high-performance professionals to repower himself, and thus take Peru to Qatar 2022.
“I will have revenge”assured Cueva about his failed penalty in Russia. Life has put him within reach of a new World Cup with the chance to face Denmark and France again in a group that completes Tunisia. This time his rivals could come across a more focused player, who has worked his body on the coals of the Middle East. There he will be by his side, holding him, Neyra, his firebender.
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