“Some people are on the pitch, they think it’s all over... it is now. It’s four!”
Any fan – even the millions who were too young to remember it or not even born at the time – will instantly recognise that as the commentary by Kenneth Wolstenholme on Geoff Hurst’s third goal and England’s fourth in the final of the 1966 World Cup final. But only if they are English. A global audience might have sharper memories of the disputed third goal. The English public, meanwhile, recall the way that the clinching fourth goal was verbalised.
In the same way, many neutrals might have had their patience tested by the goalless draw followed by a penalty shoot-out in the 1994 final between Brazil and Italy. But for a Brazilian audience, suffering a seemingly eternal 24-year wait for a fourth title, the entire thing took on epic proportions. And almost all of them will remember the commentary of Galvao Bueno when Italy’s Roberto Baggio blasted over the bar. “It’s all over,” yelled Bueno again and again, before repeating “four times champions” until his voice gave way.
Football is watched all over the world – but in a national context. Same images, but different words, different languages, different interpretations.
And the leading interpreter of Peruvian football, and especially the Peruvian national team, dropped dead of a heart attack this week at the age of 48.
The death of Daniel Peredo has caused a national commotion. Part of his funeral was held in Lima’s National Stadium. Thousands went along to pay their respects and to mourn the cruel, untimely death of a man with two young daughters, whose career was just about to hit its highest peak yet.
As a football obsessed kid, Peredo witnessed his country’s campaigns of 1978 and 1982. But there were no more World Cups thereafter. Indeed, once Peredo took to the microphone to commentate on their games at the start of the century, Peru were never remotely in contention for a World Cup place. And for the first half of the Russia 2018 campaign, things seemed to be going the same way.
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Peredo, then, was mostly doomed to conveying disappointment – though he wrung every bit of joy possible from the occasional triumphs. He made his name shouting himself hoarse when Peru managed a last kick of the game equaliser at home to Argentina in 2008. “I don’t broadcast games,” he said. “I broadcast emotions. It’s all about what the public feel, what I myself am feeling during the game.”
He might well have been doing himself a disservice. Peredo was able to ‘see’ the game, analyse it and make good use of his expert summarisers – like his old friend, former national team goalkeeper Ramon Quiroga. But he will be best remembered for those moments when he captured the emotional mood of the nation – and he left the national team on a high, triumphant and joyous as Peru beat New Zealand 2-0 back in November to clinch the last place in Russia. “There are no ills that last for 36 years,” said Peredo soon after the final whistle had blown. “Ramon,” he cried out, “Peru are going back to the World Cup!”
How he must have been looking forward to being at the microphone on June 16, when Peru kick off their campaign against Denmark. Instead of which, with less than four months to go until the big day, he felt unwell at the end of a Monday morning kick-about and soon afterwards suffered a fulminating heart attack.
Many of the players of the Peru team have expressed their sorrow at the desperately sad, cruelly premature passing of a national institution. “Peredo, our friend, Peru is with you,” chanted the fans in the National stadium on Wednesday. What a crying shame that he will not be with the Peru team in Russia this June.
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