Member of Los Pumas In three World Cups -including that of 2007, with that historic third place in France -and star of the Toulouse -club with which he was champion of the Galo Tournament in 2008, 2011 and 2012 and the European Cup 2010-, Patricio Albacete He retired from Rugby in 2018, playing for the Frenchman Racing 92. Although his career in the national team was truncated in 2013, after a journalistic interview where he strongly criticized the UAR for lack of support for the players, the absence of adequate facilities to train and the doubtful handling of certain funds of the entity.
At that time, as a heavyweight of the team, the second line was at the forefront of the claims of much of the squad, without exposing anyone. Less, to the youngest and with fewer backs to request. But after his confrontation with the leadership that became in his marginalization of the Pumas, he also had to face the silence of other referents of the combined. To those who now decided to point out in “A thousand battles”his recent and explosive autobiography, where he also travels his career on and off the court. Since its inception at the Manuel Belgrano Club – which allowed him to channel a teenage rebellion that had worried his parents – until his present as a Polirubro entrepreneur.
Of those other referents, the most pointed in the book is the former captain, half scrum and now leader of the UAR Agustín Pichot. Although there are also sticks for Felipe Contepomicurrent selected coach, your assistant Juan Martín Fernández Lobbe and Juan Martín Hernándeztoday ESPN commentator.
“Pato” Albacete, however, argues that a revenge, but only the drive to act accordingly with its principles. “I never had the idea of writing my biography until an editor proposed it after my retire Planet, because I had already done enough and did not want to leave it unfinished.
News: I asked because there were many speculations about it.
Patricio Albacete: They are mere interpretations and have more to do with the morbidity of each one than with me. Maybe they think I wrote the book with a revenge, but revenge of what? I don’t play rugby seven years ago. Obviously, it is a sport that continues to passionate, although today I only follow it on TV, like one more fan. Rugby has nothing to do with my life; I am very grateful because it gave me much more than I imagined and because he formed me as a person, but I also gave him everything.
News: Did you never think about presiding over the UAR to try to reverse everything you criticized?
Albacete: Some friends called me to do something, but I don’t feel like it. Today I have my own projects, my wife, desire to travel with her. I am not able to assume that responsibility.
News: If I didn’t plan to write a book, why did mails and other probative things keep?
Albacete: Because I am an obsessive neurotic (laughs); I know it because I do therapy several years ago; And when all that happened, I thought: “For doubts, I keep it.” Not to do evil, but to prove how things were, in case someone said otherwise.
News: There are people who wrote about their life to heal wounds and turn the page definitively. In your case there is any of that?
Albacete: No, I will laugh in peace. While my departure from Los Pumas was something painful, it already happened, it was already. Rugby was a very pretty stage of my life, but it is not everything, there are much more important things. Thank God, I played 19 years and retired without pending accounts.
News: I heard him say that emotional blows are harder than injuries. How did you prosecute be outside the Pumas?
Albacete: It was hard because in 2015 I missed a World Cup that I should have played, because they never objected to me as a player. The same, I no longer felt part of that team, for the disappointment for some people next to me and that they did not behave as I thought they were going to behave. I thought that my criticisms of the leadership was going to join us more as a group, but the squeezes began, some did not ban it and that hurt.
News: In another interview he said he is not interested in talking with Pichot. Does that also run for the other team members that criticize in the book?
Albacete: They are the same, I never saw them or interest them. Not for resentment, but because I realized that we did not share the same values. To those who are interested in seeing, I call them personally and we get together.
News: He went to play France at 21, there he played 16 years and his book is extended by two French rugby figures, Yannick Nyanga and Thierry Dusautoir. What do that country and those people mean for you?
Albacete: France is my second home; They are also Latin and that facilitated the adaptation. And both Nyanga and Dusautoir are two brothers of life that helped me a lot. Nyanga is a sociable type, very fucking and empathic. Dusautoir is introverted, serious, medium dry at the beginning, but if you manage to transfer the field of force that he created around him, you also discover a great guy.
News: Did you never think about staying there?
Albacete: I, although there I had a couple for six years, I always wanted to return. I had possibilities of staying as a physical trainer or coach, but I wanted to cut a little with the rugby atmosphere and develop other interests.
News: Was that close to his retirement?
Albacete: No. As I am an obsessive neurotic, at 30 I knew I wanted to develop in other things. Above all, after seeing many large players already retired than not knowing how to fill that void, they fell into depression, alcohol or drugs.
News: Why did you choose to develop your projects here, with how unstable Argentina is economic?
Albacete: That is true, but unlike Europe, where almost everything is done, here there is still a lot to do. Argentina is full of opportunities; And while here everything is more complicated, in some things to develop businesses can be more profitable. More with this government, which seems to me that it is changing so many years of mistakes and choreo.
News: I had never heard about politics …
Albacete: Maybe because they never asked me. I talk about everything. Then, you can agree or not; But well, I am libertarian (laughs). I also have a Bachelor of Business Administration -Carrera that I ended up withdrawing because I had promised my father-, I made masters in finance and in marketing and international businesses. I am also ontological coach.
News: Where does your taste for the ontological come from?
Albacete: I am very rational and I need to make me see things differently, from a more emotional side, to reach my deepest fibers and contemplate the other more. I also like the esoteric.
News: And so?
Albacete: I am a non -practitioner Catholic because I think that the Church did not evolve in many things, but I think there are angels, beings of light, good and bad energies. I like to investigate that because I think it has real influence on our lives.
News: I heard him say that his wife, former model and former bodybuilder Pamela Pombo, was decisive to conclude the book. Why was it?
Albacete: She is decisive for my life. We began to leave in 2023, at four months we got married as a civilian and we had the party a year ago, with a religious ceremony. Pame filled all the lockers.
News: Tell us about your ventures.
Albacete: I have a Factory software that makes applications, I have vineyards and produce wines, and I am also building a premium departments complex in Pilar. All with experienced people on each topic and some rugby friends.
News: In the book he talks a lot about the values instilling rugby and how formative that was in his life. How do you explain cases like Fernando Báez Sosa?
Albacete: That rugby is hyperformative, there is no doubt in fact, it is said that it is a sport of villains played by knights. If in the rugby there really would be bad intention and violence, there would be incidents every weekend. However, that does not happen, or occurs very in isolation. Which indicates that despite being a contact and aggressive sport, there is a lot of respect for the rules, the referee and the rival. Now, as in every field of society, there are always people who do not respect things and believe more than the rest; And these boys enter this, who committed an atrocity and are paying for it. But for these murderers, it cannot be said that all rugbiers are violent and that all the good thing that rugby has. Both clubs and foundations and the Spartans, where among the presidiaries and former presidiaries who play rugby, the level of recidivism is only five percent.
Sergio Núñez (@Sergei_nunez) Daniel Núñez (@daninunez2)
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