Club The Strongest - Viloco Tragedy

 It was 1969, the Board of Directors presided by Don José Luis de Aranguren, had made as in many other occasions a real effort to form a team of soccer players to the stature of the Club's history; this is how this objective was achieved; the same that was in competition in the local competition.

The Strongest received an invitation from the Asociación Cruceña de Futbol who organized an international quadrangular championship in homage to the anniversary of the Department of Santa Cruz. The Strongest left for Santa Cruz with its entire starting line-up, with the exception of captain Rolando Vargas and Paraguayan Luis Gini, who was injured, as well as Marco Antonio Velasco from Santa Cruz, who was also seriously injured twenty days before the trip.

Alberto Alarcón; as Manager and Delegate, Mr. José Ayllon, the Technical Director, Professor Eustaquio Ortuño, and the players: goalkeepers: Armando Angelacio, and Orlando Cáceres; defenders: Hernán Andretta, Juan Iriondo, Miguel Angel Porta, Jorge Tapia, Julio Alberto Díaz and Oscar Guzmán; midfield: Héctor Marchetti, Oscar Flores, and Raúl Farfán; attackers: Diógenes Torrico, Fernando Duran, Osvaldo Franco, Eduardo Agustín Arrigó, Germán Alcázar, and Ernesto Villegas; utility player: Felipe Aguilar. Once the participation in this tournament was completed, The Strongest started its return from Santa Cruz, on Friday 26th, at 2:10 p.m. it boarded the Douglas DC-6B ship of the LAB. - 92 -At 3:30 p.m., the operators of the Trompillo airport notified the Cochabamba and La Paz airports of the loss of contact with the aircraft, which led to the presumption of a serious emergency and later became a real national tragedy with the loss of 74 lives, including well-known national personalities and the entire delegation of The Strongest, except General Alberto Alarcón who for personal reasons had decided to stay in Santa Cruz.

The grief and pain took hold not only of the Strongest family, but of the people and the country in general, since the news of the crash of the ship in the summits of Viloco, in the Andes Mountains, sowed mourning throughout the national territory.

After the pain of friends and strangers, and after the tributes to our "Martyrs of Viloco", as they have been declared, came the process and the arduous task of raising a new team from the ashes of this tragedy; For this purpose, national and international solidarity was received, from various parts of South America came samples of solidarity from various clubs, offering their teams to act for free for the benefit of the club The Strongest, as well as the Argentine clubs Boca Juniors and River Plate, which were made available to the "atigrados" and whose presidents came in person to the city of La Paz.

Other encouraging signs of solidarity came from the Bolivian Football Federation, the South American Confederation and FIFA, as well as clubs from the continent. From that moment on, the task of reviving and rebuilding The Strongest was the work of many people and institutions. A high-level commission was formed to make possible the offers of collaboration from Buenos Aires, Santiago, Lima, Rio de Janeiro, Asuncion, etc.

Boca Juniors contributed with two excellent youth players Romerito and Bastida. The president of the South American Football Confederation, Teofilo Salinas, donated twenty thousand US dollars; The President of the Brazilian Sports Confederation, Joao Havelange, organized the Carioca classic: Flamengo vs Fluminense, whose proceeds benefited The Strongest, even the classic rival Bolivar gave its most important players and thus formed the team called "The Strongest Symbol" which would tour the interior of the country and also abroad in order to raise funds for the recovery of the Aurinegra.

Thus, like the Phoenix Bird, The Strongest rises from the ashes of adversity, but always honoring its "Martyrs of Viloco" and all those who showed us the way and who are no longer with us today, to reach the hundred and two luminous years and stronger than ever.