Horacio Morales

Argentine international defender Horacio Morales played for the Buenos Aires club Atlético Atlanta 102 times between 1970-72, and scored two goals. He had started his career with two other Buenos Aires clubs, Atlético Nueva Chicago and Velez Sarsfield, before moving to Unión Santa Fe. He played 144 times in the Argentine first division, and scored five goals.

Along with Rodolfo Vicente, Daniel Gil, and Giorgio Vallejos, Morales was one of four Atlanta players who moved to Greece in 1972. Moráles, Gill and Vallejos joined AE Larissa (AEL), while Vicete went to AEK Athens. After his playing career, Morales had a spell as coach to AEL in 1975/76 and as assistant coach to Jacek Gmoch in 1988, when the club won the Greek Championship for the first time in their history. As at 2021, it remained their only League title. After Gmoch left his post, Morales took charge of the club again, but for just two months. He remained in Larissa for the rest of his life, and died there in 2021.

He didn’t know it at the time, but Morales played a significant role, through no fault of his own, in the worst football stadium disaster in history. On 24 May 1964, Argentina played Peru in a qualifying match for the Tokyo Olympics at the National Stadium, Lima. Argentina needed a win to qualify, while Peru needed a win to keep their hopes alive. The visitors opened the scoring after 18 minutes of the second half, and 10 minutes from time Moráles cleared out of defence, but his clearance hit the boot of Peru’s “Kiko” Lobatón and went into the goal. The Uruguayan referee called a foul against the Peruvian, however, and disallowed he goal. After protests on the pitch the referee cancelled the match and home fans ran onto the pitch and tried to attack the referee. This sparked rioting on the terraces and the police released their dogs, and fired tear gas into the crowd. This sparked panic, as fans tried to get out of the ground. Sadly, the gates many of them were heading towards were closed. As a result, at least 328 people would lose their life, and 500 more were injured trying to escape. Rioting and looting spilled onto the streets around the ground.

The qualifying group was subsequently suspended, although Brazil and Peru played off two weeks later to see who would finish second. Brazil won 4-0.