The only half-interesting story of the pre-season at the moment is the fallout from an extraordinary on-pitch scrap engaged in by San Lorenzo’s star striker Gonzalo Bergessio during a friendly against Uruguayan club El General. On Thursday he had a coming-together with the hosts’ Gusmán Elizarzú, and by common consent it was the other bloke what came off worse.
The match was supposed to be a friendly, but Bergessio has a reputation as a competitive spirit and even though the opponents were amateurs and the setting was a pre-season warmup game. After being caught by Elizarzú’s left hand and cut on his nose and cheek by a ring on the defender’s hand, Bergessio let fly and ended up taking on most of the home team. The match, being won 2-0 by San Lorenzo at the time, was called off five minutes before half time.
‘I’m good. Impeccable,’ Elizarzú told Olé afterwards. ‘I don’t know what happened to Bergessio. He was in a rage, he fought with everyone… he took issue with me because I put my best foot forward and asked him to calm down a bit. Not to be such an idiot, because it was only a friendly. He told me that I was a piece of shit and that he was going to kill me.’ What a charming picture to paint.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, San Lorenzo’s official site carries no news about this fight. Perhaps there’s a simple explanation though: the home side’s kit. The recent clásicos against River Plate have been probably the nastiest set of derbies in Argentina, and El General dress in… white shirts with a red sash. Mystery solved.
Hasta El Gol Siempre 
Ha ha ! Bergessio has his game face on already. Is there really a spanish equivalent for “you are a piece of shit” ? I thought that was a peculiarly english phrase. Maybe Bergessio is bilingual in addition to being a mean dude.
He’s not *that* hard… it’s probably pretty cold now, and it looks like he hadn’t even taken off his tracksuit top to play in this game!
I can’t really piece together what happened. Elizarzu punched Gonzo during the fight, or he caught him accidentally with his left hand in the course of play, which started the fight?
I have ALWAYS said that Bergessio is the Argentine answer to Wayne Rooney and look how he is behaving now! They even have the same temper, although, to be fair on Wazza, I’ve never seen him fighting like this.
What happened, justin, was that the Uruguayan defender (I saw the images on TyC Sports the day after the fight), accidentally touched him with his hand in a move that was very normal. They just collided and Bergessio got his nose cut.
A few minutes later, Bergessio went stud first to challenge for the ball against this same player (who was wearing no shinpads). It was a nasty thing to do by Bergessio, who right after that got questioned by this defender. That was when Bergessio threatened to punch him and actually lifted his arm and did a boxing move.
When the Uruguayan saw this, he reacted and when Bergessio went for it, the first thing he found was a beautiful left hook that cut his cheekbone. What you see in the picture above, is another Uruguayan player that arrived to separate his team-mate and Bergessio and got pushed around.
Migliore, who was on goal for San Lorenzo, ran 80 metres in about 4,35 seconds and also helped separate both sets of players.
Here’s a clip. You won’t see the moment in which Bergessio got his nose cut or the nasty studs first attempt of a tackle that followed.
But you see that beautiful left hook by Elizarzu.
Seba, have Racing got a senior goalkeeper yet?
It’s weird, I’m almost sorry to see Migliore playing for another team, ha ha. I mean, he’s not the best, but he tries hard and seemed to develop an affinity with the Racing fans despite his Boca obsession. He made some important, if sometimes lucky stops last season.
What about Carranta? Last time I saw him, he was on the bench at Lanús. If Bossio is leaving, does he step up to Lanús no.1 now?
Thanks Seba!