Oswaldo Marcial Palavecino, former soccer player for Nacional, Santa Fe and other teams, died – Colombian Soccer – Sports

Palavecino died this Sunday in his native country, Argentina, at the age of 71, a victim of cardiac arrest.

(Read also: Former Santa Fe player, in intensive care after receiving two shots)

He played for Nueva Chicago, Vélez Sársfield and Argentinos Juniors, in his country, before being hired by the then called Cristal Caldas in 1975. He stood out for his power and strength to head. Curiously, in those years the white club managed to bring in several unknown gunners who triumphed in the country: Palavecino, Ramón Orlando Gómez, Mario Bianchini and, many years later, Galván Rey.

He spent two years at that club and showed enormous scoring ability: he scored 52 goals in 100 games and helped the team qualify for the first time to a final phase of the League, in 1976.

That scoring power made Atlético Nacional look to him as a reinforcement for the 1977 Copa Libertadores, after having won the local title a year earlier. And with the greens he also shone, with 84 goals in 166 games. In his first two years with the Greens he was a league scorer: 30 goals in 1977 and 36 in 1978.

In 1980, Independiente Medellín wanted to put together a team to fight everything and hired several of the best local soccer players. Palavecino came to their ranks, alongside names such as Ernesto Díaz, Juan José Irigoyen, Henry Caicedo and Luis Gerónimo López. But that DIM did not perform and his figures with red were not so brilliant: 7 goals in 34 games.

A year later, Santa Fe tried to put together another forward with experienced players and winners in local soccer and joined Eladio Vásquez, Palavecino and Miguel Ángel Converti. Despite the fact that he contributed 21 goals in 46 games (plus another four in the short-lived Copa Colombia), the reds did not reach the finals.

In 1982 he went to Millonarios, with whom he scored 19 goals in 43 games, and the following year he reinforced Cúcuta Deportivo, where he scored 17 goals in 37 games. In 1984 he returned to Santa Fe and closed his career in Tolima, in 1985.

(Read also: James lets off steam again: ‘I want to go where I can play and be happy’)

With 204 annotations, Palavecino is the fourth historic scorer in Colombian football, only surpassed by Sergio Galván (224), Iván René Valenciano (217) and Hugo Horacio Lóndero (211). After leaving football, he returned to his country, where one of his sons, Rubén Osvaldo, was also a professional player: he performed, among other teams, in Boca Juniors.