INTERVIEW of JUAN SARAVI PLATERO by RADIO DORMAA AHENKRO

1. How and when did you start your football career?

I started my football career in Argentina playing tournaments in teams of my neighborhood outside the city of Buenos Aires in TANDIL. Then my family migrated to Madrid where I played in school tournaments when I was 12. It was there where my passion for the football was growing up day by day, and when I went back to Argentina my expertise was to score goals, and I scored more than 200 during my career, both as amateur and professional.

2. In how many teams did you play? Name some of them

My education background belongs to La Plata, a famous football team that won the International Cup against the Manchheste Unitedin 1968 and it played the last Clubs World of the FIFA against Barcelona. As a professional I played in Bluefield’s team in Nicaragua.

3. Did you play in some football team in Italy?

In Italy I was in contact with Inter and Chievo Verona, and then in a team of a lower category named Montegrimano Terme. I have also been training teams of the Saint Marine Republic but I did not play there since my dream was to play in Africa. I can be very helpful for Aduana Stars, I am 1,91 cms and my height will help in the air play. I can also pave the way for the center fowards. They can learn from my techniques and me from theirs, I think it will be a good exchange to achieve good results.

4. Do you feel good with the Ghana clime? It is hotter than in your country

Yes here the weather is hotter, it is more difficult to me and I need to rehydrate myself constantly but do not forget I am afro descendant, my origins comes from here since my great-great-grandparents left Ghana during the Diaspora time more than 200 years ago. My great-great-grandfather was a slave, I am of the sixth generation of Africans in Argentina, and here you are the pictures of my great-grandparents. My great-grandfather Tomas Braulio Platero was a distinguished profesional in Argentina, since he gained his title of Notary Public in Argentina; my family has always fought for the African identity in our afro descendant community in Argentina and Latin America.

I have visited different afro descendant communities in Peru, Bolivia, and in Nicaragua, where I played in the Bluefields FC. Bluefilds is the city of Nicaragua with the majority of afro descendants, also belonging to the Diaspora time, more than two centuries ago. That is why my purpose is to achieve the citizenship of Ghana, it is important to us, afro descendants, to be recognized by our origin countries. I would really like obtaining the citizenship of Ghana and playing the World Cup 2010 with the Ghana team.

5. Did you hear the comment of the trainer when you arrive?

I talked to Hebert Addo in Accra, to Mister George from Italy and we made all contacts to start to prepare myself physically to play the Top four tournaments, since it is late to play the final matches of the tournament since the book of transferences is already closed. My aspirations are huge, mainly to be part of this wonderful team of players. I will give my best to achieve the National Championship with Aduana Stars, to play the African Champions League, to be champions of the top four and to be the highest goal scorer of the tournament.

6. I work with the hopes and aspirations of the football club of Aduana and the league of Ghana

Juan Saravi Platero afro Argentinean is descendent from the Africans that went to Argentina during the time of the Diaspora, his fourth grandmother Maria Clara was to auction in Buenos Aires in 1887

Juan Saravi Platero, player of Aduna is afro descendant; his grandparents were slaves in 1800 in Argentina. He decided to come to play football in Ghana since he considered the level is high and his dream has always been to play in Ghana, the land of his ancestors, to know the land from where more than 200 years ago his grandparents left Africa during the Diaspora time.

He has in Argentina together with his family the artisanal activity bread making and he is representative of plastics artists, Latin American painters and sculptors. Besides playing with Aduana, he also wishes to organize a painting and sculpture exposition of afro descendant artists from Latin America, to let them know their origins and achieve, why not the recognition and citizenship of Ghana.

His mother Carmen Platero is a passionate defender of afro descendant communities in Latin America and she managed the Pro Latin America Theatre of Limon in Costa Rica. She is the founder of the Black Comedy of Buenos Aires in Argentina, a theater group created by all afro descendant Argentineans.

I really hope that Rajevac will call me to be part of the National Team of Ghana for the South Africa World Cup 2010.