Alexander Bernabei: The First Argentine Soccer Player to Join Celtic and Lift the Scottish Premiership Trophy

When Celtic lost in 1967 the final of the Copa Intercontinental ante Racing With the left-footed shot by “Chango” Cárdenas at the Montevideo Centennial, the eleven starters for the Scottish team had been born within a 50-kilometre radius of Celtic Park. More than half a century later, the world is different and football has changed a lot. Celtic continues to be a regular participant in the Champions League, but a galaxy away from the soccer powerhouses of the continent. Globalization and the Bosman Law made the Celtic squad more cosmopolitan. Today you can find five Japanese footballers – the coach Angelos Postecoglu, a Greek with an Australian passport, previously directed Yokohama Marinos – and a South Korean.

Y for the first time in the club founded in 1887, historically linked to Catholicism, there are An Argentinian since July 2022. It is Alexander Bernabe, 22-year-old, who at the beginning of May celebrated the conquest of the Premiership, tenth local league in the last eleven years. “It was all very fast, all of a sudden. My representative handles himself that way, he doesn’t like to anticipate the negotiations. being in lanus I had plans to go abroad. There was some chance of Italy, but Celtic appeared with everything. I don’t forget: one Tuesday, at the end of training, I get a message saying ‘Grab your things and say hello to your colleagues, you’re going to Scotland in two days.’ Laucha (Acosta) and other colleagues did not believe me, they told me ‘what are you doing, where are you going’”expressed Bernabei, left back, in a telephone conversation with THE NATION, through which some tears of Olivia, her three month old daughter.

Scotland is not a frequent destination for the Argentine soccer player. Bernabei is not only the first in Celtic history, he is also the only compatriot to have participated in the last Premiership. At the beginning of this century is the passage of Claudio Caniggia for Dundee and Rangers.

Next Saturday, Celtic can get the treble of the season (he already won the League Cup) in the final against Inverness for the Scottish Cup, at Hampden Park. “I came across a giant, huge, immense club. One at a distance does not take notion of what it is. I would compare it to Boca for everything that moves socially. People transmit a lot to you. We play all the games with 60,000 people at Celtic Park. And in the Champions League, no way. I did not expect this passionwhich is even stronger in the classic against Rangers, a historic rivalry”, added Bernabei, who is quick to clarify: “Everywhere it appears that I am from Cañada de Gómez, which is where I spent my childhood, but in reality i was born in Correa, a small town stuck”.

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-What cost you the most: the physical, the rhythm, the tactical?

-First of all, the language. I came with very little English, almost nothing, and on top of that, Scottish English is very closed, they barely open their mouths to speak it. It’s been a year and I’m still struggling. We have some friends who came from Miami and they don’t even understand the Scots, they have to ask them to speak more slowly. In football I found a 4-3-3 and a coach who really likes the full-backs to go inward, something that is not seen so much in Argentina, where the winger closes in and the full-back is projected down the wing. I had a hard time adjusting to that system. He wants the winger to be able to go from No. 5, come down and play with the ball. It is what Guardiola did in Bayern Munich (con Kimmich) and in Manchester City (con I cancel and now Stones). It was somewhat complicated because they had never asked me. Sometimes I’m afraid to get too involved in the middle, it represents a responsibility. If number 5 loses the ball, the two centrals are left hand in hand, and if we are open, it gets complicated. The coach is very clear about what he wants to play for, he is very demanding. When he sees that you’re not up to your peers, he tightens the nuts on you. They want everyone to be 100 percent.

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The forward project remained in the past: “In Correa I played No. 9. When I went to Rosario they put me on the wing, on the right or left, and I was doing very well. In 2015 I arrived in Lanús And I started as a winger or insider on the left. He played more of a striker, until in a training session the coach Gabriel Medina, in the seventh division, he asked me if I wanted to be a left-back, and from that moment on I was building as a full-back. It is clear to me that it is my position, it allows me to start from behind to take advantage of my skills and speed: go on the attack, play two against one.

The strongest emotion with the fans: the left-footed goal

Of the 15 presences of Bernabei in 33 dates for the Premiership, nine were starters. He played 865 minutes out of a possible 2,970 (30 percent). “There are few who come to Europe and start playing. The first year is always the hardest. You find yourself with a more structured and ordered game. It cost me this year It is not what I expected because he came from being a starter in Lanús. There were many things: the birth of their first daughter, the language, the death of my grandfatherwho was the one who raised me. It was quite a tough year for me in general, I think next season will be better. I have a contract until 2027. my head is hereto get among the 11, to play more minutes in the Champions League ”, was his justification.

The experience in the Champions League was fleeting, a little while against Leipzig, but very mobilizing: “Play even 10 minutes for the Champions League It was putting the green tick to one more dream. Going to the Bernabéu was also incredible, having my family in the stands, a dream that seemed unattainable to me. A memory forever.”

“Argentina Argentina!!”

For football memories, almost none better than the goal with a shot from outside the area in the 2-0 defeat of Ross County: “After the goal, hearing that the fans chanted ‘Argentina, Argentina’, it was something incredible for me. An inexplicable feeling, I got goosebumps listening to them. And be careful, because the Scotsman plays in my position (Callum) McGregor, who has been in the national team for a while and is very loved. Here, the fans don’t let you walk, there’s a lot of fanaticism. They stop you a lot on the street, they ask you for photos, autographs”.

He felt well received and treated by the squad, but due to the language difficulty, he still hasn’t dared to ask the goalkeeper Joe Hart How were the years you shared in Manchester City with the “Only” Agüero. “As for life outside of football, it’s hard to get used to it: the sun doesn’t come out, it rains every day. In winter a lot of snow fell. We are entering the summer, now there is a little sun”.

In that free time, in the streets of Glasgow was involved in a police incident dyed by the strong rivalry with Rangers, Protestant majority. Bernabéi explains how the episode was, with a legal case that is open: “It was not as it was said in Argentina. There was never a vehicular breathalyzer control. In Scotland I never saw a breathalyzer test on the streets, never. Unfortunately I had to pay for someone else’s piper. We were in a bar and there was a problem with my partner (not from the Celtic team), he argued with him, the security man broke his phone and called the police. My partner wanted to get paid for the phone. I told him ‘come on, he’s done’, but hey, he got complicated. He is the bad part of being known for being a footballer. They do a breathalyzer test on me when they take me to the police station for the mess the other man had. There is an open case, I appeared on May 14 in Court, but they were not the ones who should judge me. It was postponed to August 14, I think it would end there.”

And here comes the most striking point: “The issue is that the policemen were Rangers fans, I had that bad luck. And I hooked her up for being there, for being Alexandro Bernabei. I am calm, I have full faith that on August 14 Justice, Justice (repeats), will see reality. My conscience is more than clear, I am not guilty “.

In a couple of weeks it will be time to return from vacation to Argentina after a year, together with his wife, who is from his town. His grandfather, who just passed away, raised him until he was 11 years old, then he went to live in the country with his mother. The job milking cows, unloading bags of cement and even taking care of cars during the funerals in the cemetery that was in front of his house. More than one night, there was nothing more than for a cooked mate and a bath in a fountain, according to what he told a few years ago in the newspaper Olé. “All these experiences are shaping you as a person, they make you mature, they make you stronger. I am grateful for that kind of life that touched me. Today I am not afraid at all, I am a person with a lot of character”. And if there was any family disagreement, it was overcome: “As one grows, one learns things and life itself teaches you to forgive. You have to know how to apologize to be good with yourself. Being bad with my parents would be a disturbance for my head for life. I brought my mother to Glasgow two months ago, it was quite an impact for her to get on a plane for the first time. It’s a new world for her.”

He had a reference to the Brazilian side Marcelo and now he pays close attention to Juan Bernat (Paris Saint-Germain), with whom he believes he shares a style of play. Someday he would like to return to Lanús, where Luis Zubeldia made him debut in first class in 2019: “It was a very nice stage, I miss my teammates, the people, the games a lot. All. I would play in Lanús again, without a doubt. I have a great relationship with Pepe Sand, the old man is a phenomenon”.

At the end of the talk, the request is a vindication of the origins: “Below, say that Bernabei leaves a greeting for Club Atlético Correa.”