When the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Marco Fidel Suárez National High School was completed, a large number of decorations were awarded to those who were chosen as the best high school graduates in the history of that prestigious institution. They awarded personalities with great achievements, but among others, they forgot one of the most beloved high school graduates and admired by all levels of Colombian football, our most popular sport, an activity in which he taught as a person of good, chivalry, respect, tolerance, gallantry and patriotism, qualities that made him a great footballer, widely recognized by all as a true crack. I am referring to Mario Agudelo Pérez, who treated all his friends with his immense capacity to love and the gift of people.

As a footballer, he shone with his own light from an early age in the midst of a family made up of people with many human values, which they instilled in him since he was a child and catapulted him to his well-deserved fame in a sport with a great social dimension.

From the most humble strata to the most encumbered in the soccer fight, they boasted greeting him and presenting themselves as his friends. This is how he made all of us who sought his friendship feel, putting feelings of admiration for his talent and mastery to dominate a ball as much as for his exemplary behavior, worthy of imitation, now that violence invades the fields of soccer.

How many yellow and red cards do you get on a professional soccer date, where violence starts right there? Mario did not know what that was, he did not exert any type of mistreatment and he always respected the decisions of the technicians and the decisions of the referees with respect.

I do not want to enter the football field, widely commented by specialists, but I will remember some anecdotes that complement those opinions, starting with one that Dn Alex Gorayev told me: "Mario, you weigh 60 kilos, you don't kick hard with the right or the left, you do not head, you do not kick anyone, you do not run: how do you manage to play so well? "

-Turrón Álvarez, the master of the cracks, told me one day after the classic that he played for Medellín facing Mario who played for Nacional, a match in which he scored a goal in the last minute to achieve a tie: “Saúl, one believes that Mario does not it moves and finds it everywhere "(Mario had to mark it on that occasion).

In his first games as a professional footballer, they interviewed Professor Hugo Gallego and compared him to Mario, to which he replied: "It's a pleasure for me to watch him play." In one of his books, Fútbol y Sociedad, he qualifies him as the best midfielder in all of Colombia's soccer history, "watching Mario play was a feast for the eyes and a rest for the soul."

-El Dr. Gabriel Ochoa told me that Mario had whale lungs.

-Oscar López, in my opinion, the greatest of Colombia's defenders of all time (q.e.p.d.) told me: "since I knew I had Mario supporting me, I left without worrying and did what Passarela later learned."

The famous sports journalist, Dn Carlos Serna (R.I.P.) called him the Beethoven of football.

In a game played at the Atanasio Girardot, with a court that looked like a swimming pool, Mario lifted the ball with great elegance and made passes with great precision like none other of the players, dazzling the audience and in Bogotá, he was about to come out clean on a pitch in terrible condition, when the rest of the footballers got muddy. Intentionally, one of the opponents dirtied it out of sheer envy, to the rejection of the spectators.

As a professional soccer player, he had the honor of representing Colombia on several occasions. He acted in Atlético Nacional, Deportivo Independiente Medellín, Deportivo Cali, winning four championships and outstanding appearances in the Copa Libertadores. Later in Atlético Quindío and Cúcuta Deportivo. He contrasts his greatness as a human being and a footballer with the abuse of those clubs that did not affiliate him with the social security system and that were also conspicuous by their absence in the last days of his life spent with dignity, surrounded by family and close friends with all possible attention for a human being. As far as it is known, a posthumous tribute has not occurred to them either, so-called to exchange for honors in life.

It is well worth it for the Colombian leadership, and especially the Antioquia leadership, to keep that name in mind for a deserved recognition that repairs the serious historical error of not having done so in life.

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