About me

I was born in Cachimbo when it was still a small town, before it became a suburb of our great and expanding capital city. Like all kids, then and now, I was soccer-crazy. The truth is, though, that I talked football better than I played. After my mother died, my father took it into his head that I should be a doctor. So, at the age of eighteen, like a dutiful son, I went off to study medicine at Santa Cruz. I dropped out after a year - for some reason, cutting up dead bodies didn't agree with me.

I got a job - running errands, mostly - on the Santa Cruz Diario. Eventually, they allowed me to cover the local non-league matches. I wrote long passionate accounts of games, which my editor would chop down to a single paragraph. I learned a lot from that guy.

I moved from place to place, from one regional paper to another. Honing my craft, as the cliché has it. I was down in Catalina when I got my first sports piece accepted by La Nacion. I remember vividly going to the news stand and buying a copy of the paper, seeing the by-line 'From Paul Faustino in Catalina'. My name in the national press! I called my father and said 'Hey, Papa, I'm in La Nacion!' He said 'Why? What have you been arrested for?'

Ten years ago, I joined La Nacion as a staff reporter, and the rest, as they say, is history...

You may also know me from TV; I occasionally grace the studio of Channel 9's 'Football in Focus'. I was on most of the news networks when I broke the story about El Gato's retirement, the week after the World Cup. In fact, I'm on leave from La Nacion at the moment, writing the authorized biography of El Gato. Watch out for it: I can promise that you will be astonished.

Because I'm away from the office for the next six months, the charming and talented (are you reading this, Carmen?) Editor-in-Chief of La Nacion has suggested that I keep a blog. She seems to think that regular readers of my column will be anxious to keep up to date with my progress. Personally, I doubt it; nevertheless I shall 'blog' - when the mood takes me.