Last Friday, Tomas Felipe Carlovich, El Trinche (the Fork), died. He had been in an induced coma in Rosario, Argentina, since Wednesday, when he was struck on the head by a thief who stole his bicycle. Argentinian football fell into deep mourning, not just for the senseless loss of a popular 73-year-old but for the death of a dream.
Carlovich never won an international cap. He never won a title. He played only two games in the top flight. Hardly any video footage of him as a player exists. He was more myth than man. But he represented an ideal of what Argentinian football believed itself, at its best, to be.