Nicola Higuaínolder brother of the former Real Madrid striker, Gonzalo “Pipita” Higuaín and son of Jorge “Pipa” Higuaínremembered defender of River Plate, knew how to build his own path, far from the flashes but always pobrizing his family from his unconditionality. His story begins at the Palermo neighborhood club, until he debuted in San Telmo where at 21 he hung the booties for not enjoying the activity. And although his career as a professional footballer was fleeting, football continued in his life as a representative of his brothers Gonzalo and Federico, whom he accompanied to the last game of his careers.
However, football disenchanted it again from its business place and when “Pipita” retired at Inter in Miami in 2022, it turned to its true passion, music. Lover of national rock and bands such as the grandparents out of nowhere and Viejas Locas, Nicola -an apodus he adopted from his passage through Naples -found on stage the space of creative freedom that he always sought. And so he announced his first album “Friendship is the first”, an introspective work that mixes urban poetry and energetic melody.
But life always seems to have a ring return at will and when he believed herself in her best moment after editing her second album “what imports the label”, a cancer put it against the strings. Of course, his grandfather, the legendary Santos Zacarías, coach of the world champions “whip” Coggi and “Roña” Castro, taught him how to stop hands in front of adversities and thus fought with his best weapons. Today, one year after his treatment, he is recovered as the champion of life he is. The love of his children, his family and his friends, put him again in the ring, but this time not with gloves but with his living voice for what will be his third and most anticipated record work.
Nicola Higuaín: Last year we had a show in Makena with my band at eleven o’clock at night and before leaving I got together with the band’s boys and told them: “Boys, I feel very bad, I have a fever,” they told me: “Well, let’s suspend.” “No, we don’t suspend anything. Come on, we play and turn to me,” I replied. We went, we played, we finished the show, we were seeing the band that came later and when my wife arrives, he tells me: “Did you see your face?” We went home and fell asleep. Usually on Sundays the whole family comes to eat a roast, but that Sunday when I woke up I went straight to the hospital because I felt really very bad. I entered the guard at 12 noon and seven in the afternoon after several studies, the doctor told me that I had two tumors. My wife was waiting for me in the hall.
News: They are those phrases that are not forgotten anymore.
Higuaín: Exact. And I appreciate that I told me that way, that I have not minimized the subject. What they could not detect was whether they were benign or malignant because the tomograph had been broken. I told him that we did another day in the other center and he told me no, that he was hospitalized and that they were going to transfer me to the other emergency clinic. They did a whole series of studies again and I detected Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer in the lymph nodes. “Ok” I told myself, “to fight, that I have children, women, friends and a dad. I don’t want to leave this world now that I just start enjoying it seriously.”
News: During treatment the mood is fundamental.
Higuaín: All this was a Sunday and on Wednesday they were already operating me. They took me a testicle and that was the beginning of a hard treatment. My hair fell, obviously. I made 15 very hard chemotherapy sessions for three weeks interspersed from Monday to Friday of five pump hours. They were the worst 45 days of my life. Everything I thought had been a drama, like Gonzalo, when I left football or negotiations with Real Madrid, were a joke next to what I was living. I was scared, but wanting to live. Then I had a last operation, where I opened my belly and took the two ganglia that had generated the tumor. Ready. Then you control every three months and now I’m fine, willing to return to the stage doing what I love to do, which is music.
News: Throughout his life he will have had many people who approached him for convenience. During the safe treatment there were fewer people.
Higuaín: With my grandfather who was one of the most important boxing coaches in Argentina, my dad being the 2 of Boca and River, my uncle Claudio Zacarías, also a defender of San Lorenzo and then my brothers, I have a master to detect the champion’s friends. My intimate circle has been the same for 35 years when I started playing football at the Palermo Club. But the treatment could not have happened without the support of my family, my wife, my children and my doctors Reinaldo Chacón and Delfina Peralta Tanco. I lost my mother in 2021 of a cancer and knew the subject very well, which one suffers and suffers the rest. But it happened, I can say that I beat cancer.
News: Let’s change theme, he took two rock albums, but he is also passionate about tango.
Higuaín: Legacies of my mother and my grandfather. My mom was a national rock fan. I listened all the time Sui Generis and the grandparents out of nowhere, but I was also very close to my grandfather. He was a lot with him and was passionate about Gardel and Floreal Ruiz. In fact, the first song I sang, as they tell me, was a tango called “In La Tranquera.” My grandfather while training Coggi, Castro, Palma, listened to tangos. And I also gave the bag every so often. I would have liked to be a boxer, my grandfather said I had conditions, but my mother didn’t want to know anything with a boxer.
News: With his dad being one of the most famous defenders of the 80s and 90s, he was judged his and that of his brothers.
Higuaín: He never pressed us to be players. I am the biggest of my brothers, but I started because I was playing in a square, I see me a guy and tells me that I should play at the Palermo Club. We end up going all my brothers, each in different categories and there we forge our careers. I defender, Federico who was the most skilled and colorful of midfielder and Gonzalo who was lethal, of striker. Gonzalo left a scorer and champion of his category every year until he passed to River. I also came out champion, but I was the most rustic of the three. My other brother Lautaro did not devote himself to football.
News: Gonzalo and Federico’s career are recognized in the environment, but you retired very young.
Higuaín: At 21. The truth is that I was never convinced of being a footballer. I liked boxing, music, it was very good playing paddle tennis. But I ended up debuting in the first of San Telmo, in the First Metropolitan B. I was not very disciplined and training every day and leaving everything for football did not convince me. I remember that once I had been lying late and woken up to go training in a state not very good. My old man looks at me and says: “Look that you are not like your brothers, you have nothing left over.” And he was right. The truth is that being Messi is great, but how far you are willing to sacrifice everything for being Messi.
News: He spent a soccer player to players representative with only 26 years. You have to have personality.
Higuaín: I had the personality to do it, but I wasn’t passionate either. At times it was unbearable to have to meet the needs of all those around a footballer. I will not deny traveling, meeting people or anything like that, but it was a 24 -hour activity every day of the year. I enjoyed, but I had to fight with many people. No one gives you anything in the world of football.
News: Nor is it easy to sit to negotiate money with Real Madrid.
Higuaín: My grandfather always told me: “There are no dumb with money.” Drushing from Madrid, Juventus or Napoli is not easy. With de laurentiis, the Napoli, I fought. Pipita had been the record scorer of the season and wanted to build a team to get champion in Maradona’s house and I lacked the word. With Real Madrid before, the same. He had negotiated his arrival with Mijatović, but then Florentino Pérez arrived who had Benzema as a favorite and everything changed. Gonzalo made more than 100 goals in the team, even playing with Cristiano Ronaldo, but we went to Napoli who put on the table the 40 million dollars my brother was worth. The negotiation with David Beckham was the simplest because they already knew each other from Madrid and had good vibes. Then I retired from the market.
News: When did music become an option?
Higuaín: The music was always. But as I thought it was not compatible with the time that Gonzalo played football, I waited for him to retire to make my way. Soccer has those image prejudices. I can’t be making music and negotiating the contracts of my players. And I started strong at age 38. Today is my life, my motivation and what I enjoy doing the most.
News: Is the third album coming?
Higuaín: When we turn the second album we enjoy it very much. We played in many places, with many friends in the middle, I met Mariano Otero with whom I hit a lot of wave and is a very prestigious musician. And one night planning the future, I told them they had to pass things to crack a third album. Well, cancer was a before and after. Obviously there will be songs that talk about it, but the trance I lived. I am at a very creative and inspiring moment. Eager. With many dreams to specify.
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