Tonight Argentina returns to the field to continue the journey towards the dream of another victory in the Copa America in the United States and just 30 years ago, again in the United States, Diego’s career ended Maradona in the national team for the positive doping test in the match against Nigeria, at the ’94 World Cup.
After all this time, the team doctor of the Seleccion at the time, Ernesto, spoke again Ugalde, who is now 69 years old and is a highly respected traumatologist in his area, but who after that event no longer wanted to be part of the world of football. Even though he had been head of the medical team for two Argentina World Cups (Italy ’90 and USA ’94).
Speaker in the program “Era por Abajo”, by Radio Ciudadgave his first interview after more than 30 years: “There was something wrong, it was totally predictable what would happen (the positivity, the positive side). And what was unfortunately about to happen happened.”
Everything revolves around the pre-checks that were done before that infamous World Cup: “I wanted to do a preventive check, as a surprise. We had already done it with Doctor Madero before the World Cup in Italy. We did two checks and they surprised. Why? Because little things appeared, nothing serious, but of substances we didn’t know about. In Italy I was in charge and we didn’t have problems with any player, but we already had the situation under control. For USA ’94 I had planned two laboratories, one in Argentina and the other in Boston, but I was unable to create them. So after I predicted what was going to happen and it happened, I didn’t really want to be there anymore.”
We arrive at the announcement of the positive test: “How did I know that it was Maradona, and not another player, who tested positive? I knew it would have been Maradona if he had gone for the doping test. Vázquez (Sergio) also went to the control, but I didn’t have the presumption that the positive was Vázquez. I had no doubts that (Maradona) would be positive.”
No conspiracy theory, however: “The nurse in the photo was a technical assistant carrying out an order. I had to take him (to check him), as happened with other players. He handled everything kindly. Diego took the wrong drug , he tested positive and the story is over. Were they (the United States) waiting for him? No, there are no hot or cold tokens, there was nothing strange conspiracy theories exist.”