The Youth World Cup is approaching its final milestone: the final four. The sensational Mali team will face France, but in the other semi-final they will face Germany and Argentina. Under-17 European Champion against the team that defeated the South American champion in the quarterfinals.
Argentina beat Brazil 3-0 to avenge their loss in the U17 Cup match in April. The match not only caused a sensation, but also generated a new name in world football: Claudio Echeverri. The midfielder is the only one since Leo Messi 2012 who managed to score a hat-trick against the Selecao. Regardless of age category. And if we only take official matches, Echeverri is the first in 98 years! Ninety. Eight.
Immediately after the match, the media exploded one after another: “New Messi”, “Real”, “Juventus”, “Man City” and others are already following.” And the player himself added fuel to the fire by saying that he had always dreamed of playing for Barça.
Claudio Echeverri
about who you would like to play for
Barcelona, in addition to River Plate. I am a big admirer of Messi and I always watched him when he played for Barça. This is what he wanted since he was a child.”
In such cases, the first thing that comes is a thought: stop. Enough public relations for merits in a match. Tomorrow it will fly away, the day after tomorrow everyone will forget it. But Claudio’s case is not as simple as it seems: he got used to attracting attention since childhood, because he began to shine long before the “Brazilian performance.”
Know me.
Claudio Echeverri
Photo: IMAGO/Sports Press Photo/TASS
Special in dirt fields
Claudio was born in Resistencia, in the northeast of Argentina, and his first club was local amateur Deportivo Luyán. Head coach Luis Cuevas remembers the day he met eight-year-old Echeverri: “When I saw how he played, how he made everyone’s heads turn with the ball, I thought he was a completely different player. That’s how you saw him when he appeared, with his micro-dribble.”
Echeverri quickly impressed Cuevas: for the coach he was both the new Messi and the new Maradona.
“Here in Resistencia, everyone who saw him play understood that he was not like the others: he attacked you as if out of nowhere and took the ball away from you. He was the same player as Maradona or Messi. He was different. I enjoyed the two years I had it and now people watch it on television. When Claudio receives the ball there is always a threat of scoring, like when Maradona played or now Messi.”
Claudio Echeverri
about his first team
“I played and trained like any kid around here, on small dirt fields, against other teams in the area.”
When Echeverri was 10 years old, the Argentine giants came to Resistencia for testing. “I told the team that “River” would arrive the next day and we were going to the screening. I brought the whole team and in my opinion we were the last, we waited all morning. But it was worth it. “I approached the organizers and told them I had a son for them.” Claudio really impressed the River Plate representatives: at first the scouts put him in the same team, he made the difference and won. Then he was transferred to another, and then the partners themselves constantly gave him the ball.
“He has impressive technique, but I always highlighted how strong he is mentally. His teammates would approach him and do whatever he said. He talked to everyone. He has character, he is strong in spirit,” recalled the first coach.
Impressed, the scouts spoke with Claudio’s parents immediately after the match and, after agreeing on the main thing, returned to the hotel to warn the management about the appearance of an “exceptional talent.” The next morning they met again, already at the Claudio family villa. Dad Domingo and Mom Rosa especially insisted: look inside the child’s room. “We crossed a long hallway and at the end there was a small white door with a red stripe. Inside there is a “sanctuary”: a nightstand with flowers, bedding, photographs, newspaper clippings and posters on the walls… Everything is “River,” recalled Daniel Brizuello, one of the club’s representatives at that meeting. .
Claudio Echeverri
Photo: MARCELO ENDELLI/GETTY IMAGES
But the transition may have failed because Claudio had a hard time adapting to Buenos Aires. During the first months he traveled back and forth, while playing for River, adapting little by little there, and in his local team, Deportivo Luyán. The process was difficult and in the end the boy almost gave up on his dream, but River Plate intervened and got his parents to move to the capital.
“Once we played against Resistencia in the semifinals. Claudio went to River and returned to adapt. I stayed there a day or two and came back. He arrived in Resistencia at six in the afternoon and we had the game at 6:30 p.m. My father and I picked him up on a motorcycle at the terminal and ran to the stadium. Fortunately we won and reached the final. He arrived just in time for the game, he wanted to win the championship with Deportivo. He did everything he could to always be there,” Cuevas said.
Popularity and pressure
At River Plate, Echeverri was not left in the shadows either and received his first notable mention at the age of 11. Then, the newspaper Clarín highlighted his performance in the international tournament in Venice: Claudio shot poker against Juventus and finished the performance with nine goals in six games. He stood out against the backdrop of the giants: Atlético de Madrid, Ajax, the aforementioned Juve and Chelsea. Echeverri even expressed his discontent with the team’s final third place in the tournament: he wanted first.
Thus, the boy from Resistencia became a prominent figure even at the national level even before starting his career in youth football and gained great popularity: 300 thousand subscribers on a well-known social network with photographs. River fans even then had hopes for the boy and gave him the nickname El Diablito because of his small stature, his crazy dribbling and his explosive speed. Marco Antonio Etcheverri, a Bolivian legend, had exactly the same thing. It turns out that it is transmitted by inheritance.
Martin Pellegrino
Echeverri coach at River Plate
“Since he was little he stood out. And throughout his growth path, his opponents were afraid of meeting Claudio’s team, they prepared in a special way.”
But popularity at such a young age is not always good. This is pressure. These are high expectations that the very young Echeverri had to face even then. The first time he was talked about was at the age of 17, when he scored 1 + 3 in the first Kopa U17 match.
“I am very calm. I talked about this with my family yesterday because a lot of things happen to me when I’m very young. I feel a lot of pressure from others and I have to live with it. Sometimes it is stressful or, so to speak, exhausting. I have to try to live with it and it is very difficult, but I am surrounded by good people.
Yesterday I was a little depressed because there are a lot of expectations placed on me, you immediately start thinking and telling yourself: “I have to do my best so that people think of me everything they say about me.” But as soon as I get on the field I try to forget it and give everything for the team.”
Testimony – Copa América U17
Another new stage in the life of Claudio Echeverri. The U17 Cup is not only the first tournament of a career with serious rivals, but also an important opportunity to demonstrate your talent to all those who have followed you since that same tournament in Venice. An additional credit of confidence is the captain’s armband, with which Echeverri played six of nine games.
Claudio Echeverri with the ball
Photo: EPA/TASS
Claudio prudently took a psychologist from River, gained peace of mind and from the first games took the lead in the scoring and assistant careers, and became indispensable on his team. At the end of the tournament, Little Devil became the best in almost all attacking actions:
best scorer – 5 goals; best in the goal+pass system – 8; best in shots – 28; best in opportunities created – 7; best in big opportunities – 10; best in successful attacking actions on average per match – 8.23; second in terms of efficiency of progressive gears – 93%.
Offensive versatility and the same qualities that River fans noticed six years ago: explosive speed, intelligent micro-movements and refined technique. Echeverri was anywhere on the field and worked with the ball as often as possible. The pressure didn’t bother me.
Claudio reached the international level: after the Cup, great interest arose: the first reports about Real Madrid and then about Juve appeared. It was this tournament that allowed him to debut exactly two months later with the River Plate first team and immediately score his first assist. Only after the Cup in Ecuador did the opportunity arise to fulfill his dream: Lionel Scaloni invited Claudio to a training session with the senior team, where he was able to meet Messi.
Claudio Echeverri
Photo: Marcelo Endelli/Getty Images
A rapid takeoff that can no longer be stopped.
“Let’s take revenge in the World Cup”
The only pain from that April tournament was Brazil. Argentina did not win the Cup, losing spectacularly in the last match by 2:3. Then, immediately after the match, Echeverri vowed to get revenge at the World Cup. And Brazil itself, and rehabilitate itself from the lost trophy.
The Argentines, like the senior Qatar national team, started the tournament with a 1:2 defeat, but then took on a dizzying pace: first they beat Japan 3:1, then they scored four unanswered goals against Poland and destroyed Venezuela in the final. 1/8 final (5-0), and in the quarterfinals Claudio scored one of his goals: he gave Brazil revenge and only scored three.
At the World Cup, unlike Kopa, this team gained confidence and became more stable not only in defense, but also more varied in attack. If in the Copa América only Echeverri decided, now he forms with Subiabre and López a crazy offensive trio: lateral midfielders, dribblers and technicians like Claudio himself. The three make combinations in the final third, take the ball to the flank and from there cross into the area. The idea is simple, but the speed of thought decides.
After the performance in the quarterfinals, there was even more talk around Echeverri: the group of interested parties was replenished with new participants, especially considering that the contract expires in December 2024. But now we know that the little guy devil doesn’t care about this. He just give him the ball.
THE NAIS IS OFFICIAL EDITOR ON NAIS NEWS