To those who went, those who returned, and those who are no longer with us, we do not forget. The Falklands were, are, and will be Argentine. We defended all that together, and at every step in the Falklands, there was also a piece of this soil. Buenos Aires, April 2 (NA) – The Florencio Sola stadium in Banfield features a mural on its main stand, named after José Luis “Garrafa” Sánchez, honoring the connection between the club from the southern part of the Buenos Aires conurbation and the Falkland Islands. According to the Argentine News Agency, the coincidence lies in the fact that the mentioned stadium is 1896 kilometers from the islands, the same number as the year the club was founded, on January 21. Furthermore, both at the mural's presentation last August and on the current date, Banfield brought together its war veteran members, who also form part of the club's Veterans Subcommission, and remembered Marcelo Daniel Massad, a hero who was a goalkeeper in the club's youth system when he died in the conflict at the age of 19. Argentine football as a whole always finds a way to remember Argentine sovereignty over the Falkland Islands and to honor its veterans and fallen soldiers, as this Thursday, April 2, marks 44 years since the war. In the case of the green-and-white club from the southern area of the Buenos Aires conurbation, it has the Banfield Malvinas War Veterans Subcommission and does not miss an opportunity to pay tribute to its members, who usually enter the field during halftime of matches that coincide with or are held after April 2, to receive a deserving and respectful tribute from the four stands. Additionally, last August, a coincidence became a mural on an external wall of the “Garrafa” Sánchez stand, built in 2008: the club's founding and the distance to the archipelago. As indicated in the painting, the distance in kilometers from the stadium located at the intersection of Peña and Arenales streets coincides with the year of the institution's first founding: 1896. This served as just another excuse to honor the war veterans and the fallen whom Banfield champions every April 2: Marcelo Daniel Massad. Born on December 31, 1962, and aspiring to become a public accountant, the 19-year-old was a goalkeeper in the fifth division of the club's youth system. As his relatives recounted, his arrival on the islands was a matter of chance: the young man met a friend in line to receive his draft lottery number in the summer of 1981, so he gave up his place to approach his acquaintance. Banfield does not forget them, nor its heroes. The young man who took his place received a low number, but he did not, so he was assigned to the La Plata regiment and arrived on the islands in April 1982. His fall occurred on the night of June 11, during the Battle of Mount Longdon, when he disregarded the order to retreat with the intention of alerting other soldiers who had not heard the call. Currently, a high school in the city of Banfield bears his name, and he rests in Darwin Cemetery, being one of the fallen whose tomb bears a name and surname. The mural was remembered on this date with an emotional video published by Club Atlético Banfield, in which the veterans state: “one defends what they love: the jersey, the neighborhood, the land, and its people.”
