Julio Pérez

Julio Gervasio Pérez Gutiérrez (19 June 1926 – 22 September 2002) was a Uruguayan footballer who played as a forward. He was a tireless footballer, with formidable control of the ball and an unusual movement of his legs in the dribble. He was the link between defense and attack, a playmaker with a precise pass and a disconcerting bow and also a great finisher. Regarded as one of the best Uruguayan football players of all time.

Pérez started in a team called Edinson, of the Metropolitan League of Montevideo, moving in 1946 to the local Racing. Racing was not even in the first division of the Uruguayan championship between 1944 and 1956, but Pérez was able to debut for the Uruguayan national team in early 1947.

In 1948, he was loaned to Uruguayan River Plate, where he stayed until a month before the 1950 FIFA World Cup. River had been third in 1948, behind only Nacional and Peñarol, and fourth in 1949, behind Rampla Juniors. He then asked for a pass to Nacional, although curiously he came from a family that supported the archrival, although he admired the tricolor icon Aníbal Ciocca, as he told in 1994:

He was obliged. In my house, there was everything from Peñarol, cushions, flags, everything. I was a big fan of Ciocca and defended him. Someone told my father that I was screaming for the National and when I got to my house it almost killed me. In my house it had to be Peñarol and period. When I was eighteen or nineteen, they took me to Las Acacias (Peñarol stadium). I went to train and they took me to the headquarters, they told me they were going to hire me. When I started at Racing, I said I was going to play for Nacional and I was going to beat Peñarol and they almost killed me.

Alongside Eusebio Tejera and Schubert Gambetta, Pérez was one of the three Nacional players who started at the Maracanaço and was the only tricolor in the Uruguayan offensive quintet in the tournament, where all the other starters (Alcides Ghiggia, Oscar Míguez, Juan Alberto Schiaffino and Ernesto Vidal) were from Peñarol, the base of the champion team. Still, the Uruguayan champion of 1950 ended up being Nacional.

It was Pérez's first club title, although ironically he and other tricolors present at the World Cup ended up not being starters in the domestic campaign. Pérez, for example, lost his position at the end of the first round, with Argentine José Miseria García taking his place and even consecrating himself as the hero of the classic with Peñarol decisive for the title. Although world champion, he struggled to get a place at the club, initially suffering from injuries and also from competition in a qualified attack also featuring Javier Ambrois, Héctor Rial and Rinaldo Martino.

Pérez also won the 1952, 1955 and 1956 titles. In 1952, he competed for position, curiously, with Gambetta. He won the contest and even scored one of the goals in the 4-2 victory in the final against Peñarol, necessary to break the tie in the championship and held in February 1953.

In 1955, in turn, the starting right midfielder was Guillermo Escalada. Pérez resumed the position in 1956, playing all the matches and even being one of the top scorers in the squad, alongside Javier Ambrois. In 1957, Pérez was loaned to Brazilian football to play for Internacional. He returned to Uruguay after a year, defending smaller clubs until ending his career in 1963.

Pérez made his debut for Uruguay on 29 March 1947, in a 0–0 win against Brazil in Montevideo for the Copa Rio Branco. At the time, he was still a player for Racing de Montevideo, which was not even in the first division.

By the time of the 1950 FIFA World Cup, Pérez had been a Nacional player for a month, after requesting a pass against Uruguayan River Plate. He was only called up because Walter Gómez, from Nacional itself, was serving a long suspension for indiscipline, which would make him transfer and become an idol at Argentine River Plate; and because the other option, the Argentine Juan Hohberg, could not yet become a naturalized citizen.

Hohberg was part of an offensive quintet at Peñarol nicknamed the "Squadron of Death", champion in 1949 in a campaign that caused three opponents to leave the stadium during the break: Rampla Juniors, Liverpool and Nacional itself, who abandoned the match at half-time after a partial 2-0 defeat in which two players had been sent off, in what became known as the Clásico de la Fuga. The other members of the quintet were all starters in the Celeste campaign: right winger Alcides Ghiggia, center forward Oscar Míguez, left midfielder Juan Alberto Schiaffino and left winger Ernesto Vidal, another to come from Argentina, but already naturalized. Pérez was the "intruder" tricolor.

Pérez was a starter since his debut, in which he even scored a goal, the seventh, in the 33rd minute, of the biggest rout of the Cup: 8-0 in Bolivia, at the Independência stadium, in Belo Horizonte. He stood out in the next match, already valid for the final quadrangular, in a tough 2-2 draw with Spain at the Pacaembu stadium. The most repeated play of the Uruguayans consisted of Ghiggia retreating to the midfield to attract the marking while Pérez made throws behind the Spanish defense and so the celestes opened the scoring, but they even suffered the comeback until they equalized in the last twenty minutes. The press described the performance of the two as "the bow and arrow".

The subsequent game also had drama. Also at Pacaembu, it was against Sweden, who won 2-1. In the final fifteen minutes, Uruguay reversed, turning it to 3-2 thanks to two plays orchestrated by Pérez, from whose feet came the passes that resulted in the final two goals, both from Míguez. Still, on the day of the Maracanaço Pérez was the only Uruguayan who seemed less relaxed when Uruguay and host Brazil were lined up in the pre-match ceremonies. He suffered an attack of urinary incontinence and relieved himself in his own foot.

During the match, the Uruguayan midfielders retreated to reinforce the marking, and it was up to Pérez to take charge of Jair da Rosa Pinto. The tactic had an effect, giving little room for Brazilian maneuvers, capable of imposing in previous games thrashings over the Swedes and Spaniards. In the second half, he stood out above all for starting the play for the title goal: in the 34th minute, he got rid of Jair and went towards the right side. He played to Ghiggia, who returned it to him at first and ran away, receiving Pérez's new pass behind Bigode. Ghiggia then individually ended the famous move that immortalized him, carrying the ball until he surprised Barbosa with a shot instead of passing the ball in half to Schiaffino - as he had done in the equalizer.

Pérez's performance was even praised by his colleague Gambetta in the locker rooms of Nacional, where the world champions used to be surrounded by other teammates curious about the achievement, although Pérez himself, in another corner of the locker room, did not listen, only becoming aware twenty years later thanks to a colleague:

This guy won (pointing to Pérez). There was a sane and 21 madmen, and this one drove the 21 crazy. You had the ball and Julio Pérez was in front of you; they had them, you were going to score and Julio Pérez was behind you; if they gave it to the winger and you were going to mark him, Julio Pérez was already next to him marking that winger; and I don't know how I did it.

Similarly, Enzo Francescoli demystified that the title was due only to Uruguay's determination: "Uruguay did not win at the Maracanã because of determination, they won because they played very well. Ghiggia, Schiaffino and Julio Pérez were unbalanced."

Pérez was also called up to the 1954 FIFA World Cup, but did not play a single match, with the starting right midfielder being Javier Ambrois. He started the 1955 Copa América, scoring one goal, Uruguay's fourth in a 5–1 win over Ecuador. La Celeste was only fourth.

That was the only Copa America that participated; in the period in which he defended Uruguay, between 1947 and 1956, he was not called up for the editions of 1947, 1949 (in which the national team was represented by a youth team in the face of a long strike of professional players), 1953 and 1956. His last match took place on November 14, 1956, after the Copa América. On that day, Uruguay drew 2-2 with Argentina in Buenos Aires. Julio Pérez moved the following year to Internacional, and at the time playing outside the country prevented him from being called up, a policy that would only be changed in the 1970s.

After he stopped playing, he settled with a rich wife in the Argentine city of Córdoba, where he dedicated himself to the family business between real estate and cattle. Such activities prevented him from dedicating himself full-time to soccer, making him always refuse to coach adult teams, only juveniles.

Julio Pérez died on September 22, 2002, at the age of 76. Shortly thereafter, in November, two other Maracanaço champions also died: Eusebio Tejera, also from Nacional, and Juan Alberto Schiaffino, from Peñarol. Thus, the Nacional vs. Peñarol classic held on November 24 had a minute of silence dedicated to the three, with the two rival fans joining in the applause.

• Primera División Uruguaya Winner: 1950, 1952, 1955 and 1956.
• Primera División Uruguaya Runner up: 1951, 1953 and 1954.
• Torneo de Honor Winner: 1955.
• Torneo Competencia Winner: 1952.
• Torneo Cuadrangular Winner: 1952, 1954 and 1955.

• Copa Rio Branco Winner: 1948.
• Copa Rio Branco Runner-up: 1947, 1950
• 1950 FIFA World Cup: Winner
• 1954 FIFA World Cup: Fourth Place
• South American Championship Fourth Place: 1955

• Profile (in Spanish) (archived)
• Career (in Spanish) (archived)
• Interview (in Spanish) (archived)