"Pichino" Carone, a hero of the first Vélez champion and one of Fortín's all-time leading scorers, has died.

"Pichino, Carone, the fans want goals!" chanted Vélez fans in the mid-1960s, before there was even a star embroidered on the jersey. On Friday, 57 years after his first goal, the fans said goodbye: Juan Carlos Carone, one of Fortín 's all-time leading scorers, died at the age of 83 .

His absence has left Argentine football in mourning. Pichino was one of Fortín's greatest stars, although he played little due to a ruptured Achilles tendon in the 1968 National Tournament, the tournament in which the Liniers-based club won its first title in its history.

Carone was born in Buenos Aires and won the hearts of fans for his remarkable goal-scoring ability, his strong personality, and a style that was as charismatic as it was irreverent, both on and off the field.

In 1965, he was a source of pride for Vélez when he became the league's top scorer with 19 goals, which also established him as a key player. Three years later, he was part of the historic squad that led the Liniers club to its first championship.

Beyond his performance on the field, Carone maintained a close connection with the Buenos Aires neighborhood of Villa Luro. He was often seen walking down streets like Ramón Falcón, Rivadavia, and Escalada, where neighbors and fans greeted him and spent time chatting about soccer. And Vélez, of course.

In an official statement, the club mourned the loss of one of its most important figures and sent its condolences to his family and friends. "We will remember him for his goals, for the matches he won, and for giving his all for the V Azulada," the club said.

He was a brilliant goalscorer, an unforgettable champion, and a beloved figure who left an indelible mark on Vélez's history and the memories of its fans. A unique player, with a unique way of moving on the pitch.

“I moved around on the left, even though I was right-footed. My strength wasn't dribbling, but rather running diagonally. That made defenders uncomfortable, made the number 4 collide with the number 2, and I tried not to overlap with the striker to take advantage of the spaces,” he summarized in an interview with Vélez Magazine .

With his method, he scored 76 goals in 149 appearances, a remarkable average of one every two matches, and became Vélez's seventh-highest scorer in all of his career. Of all the players of this century, only Patricio Camps surpassed him by 14 goals, in a table led by Carlos Bianchi, with 206.

But he won't be remembered for his goals alone: ​​Pichino was the one who stole the cap of the legendary River Plate goalkeeper Amadeo Carrizo in the middle of a match. "He drove me crazy. He'd take my cap off. He'd touch my ass. He'd ask me about my oldest daughter. And he'd take me out of the game. Then the corner kick would come and there he was, for the little scoring touch, sometimes with his knee, sometimes with his hand. He was the greatest scoundrel of Argentine football, without a doubt," the Millonario legend aptly described him.

"I was born on May 18, 1942. I grew up and spent my entire childhood in Villa Crespo. My old man was the only manufacturer of lead soldiers for the Eva Perón Foundation; he smoked Gavilán cigarettes and drank mate. He didn't know anything about soccer, nor was he interested in anything. As a kid, I used to play ball in the street from early morning until late at night, or until I heard the siren of the patrol car from Highway 29 coming to kidnap us, the Rubber Octopus," Pichino himself explained to journalist Gabriel Martínez in 2012, as an autobiography.

He signed for River Plate's Ninth Division as a center forward, but manager Renato Cesarini didn't consider him a starter and he played little, leading him to leave the Eighth Division and be out of action for a year. He then requested a transfer and went to Atlanta, where he debuted in 1962. A year and a half later, Vélez bought him for 11 million pesos, and his career with Fortín began.

In the same interview, as fate would have it, he compared himself to the cunning of current Vélez coach Guillermo Barros Schelotto . "He was worse, much worse," he asserted, recounting an anecdote to illustrate the point.

"If there had been TV coverage of some of the incidents he was involved in, they'd be talking about them for weeks. I would hide the cotton balls Carrizo used to mark the goalposts, I would grope his ass, I would squeeze his balls. Amadeo would go crazy, he would keep an eye on me with the referee and the defenders, he would go all out, he would kick the shit out of me," he explained.