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(Video starts)
This is more than a T-shirt.
This is a family. This is the club.
Here are the friends. This is our history. This is ours.
What we did during the last month, the last three months
the last eight or ten years.
It is the life we live, the one we sweat, the one we cry, the one we laugh out loud.
It is this one. So, 80 minutes to put everything. Put everything.
Because now we are going to play for our history and for the one next to us.
And we will enjoy it. Because, it is almost sure, that for many it will be the last game.
Come on, go go, go...
(Video ends)
(Music) (Applause)
Good evening. How hard it is to talk, right?
It is much easier to play with 80 thousand people and nobody says anything
and do what you want to do and no need to look at them
and see what faces they make.
Actually it is much easier to play rugby, but well, here is the challenge.
Here we are. How do I explain to you what a dream is?
How to explain to you how to achieve a dream?
I don't know how it started. My dad, when I was four,
with my parents when they pushed me to the rugby field.
There it started. I never imagined, never, what was going to happen or experience
the things I experienced nor to achieve what I achieved.
Or what we achieved. I started playing, I had fun.
Sports, guys, play. I was spending life. I started in the CASI club, right?
Friends of all my life. The same as today.
And well, we were experiencing that. One day I dreamed playing in the first level of CASI.
For me it was... the best. I was dreaming every day. I asked my old man:
"Please on Saturday take me because I want to play for the first level of CASI".
And so it happened. Every Saturday of my life
until I played for the first level of CASI.
Then I was chosen to play for my province: the Argentinian champions.
Suddendly, without realizing it, I was singing the hymn in Canberra...
in Brisbane, sorry, not in Canberra... with the T-shirt of Argentina.
Full ecstasy. Just imagine what it means for a kid, I was only 20 years old then,
to be in Australia, at the other side of the world, representing my country.
Representing my friends, representing my family.
And representing all of you, who were Argentinians. Do you know what it means?
Do you know how it feels? But I was not realizing it.
I was playing, having fun, like a hamster running the wheel,
running, plin, plin, plin. I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the best.
I wanted to be the best. I wanted to be the best. I went to Europe, right?
Where the best players of the world play.
I said, "I want to be better than them."
I went to Europe. It wasn't enough for me. I played a world championship and another.
The best middle scrum of the world was chosen for me. I kept running on the wheel. I didn't care.
I wanted to be the best. The best of I don't know what. I never knew, right? I wanted to be the best.
And suddenly, the 2003 world championship. Captain of the team.
Because it just happened that Lisandro Arbizu, the historic captain
of the team, got injured on the last moment.
I was made captain, leader. I never really knew how it was to be leader until then.
We went to the world championship. We didn't classify.
All the great expectation of Los Pumas... no, we were out.
It was such... that when I arrived in Buenos Aires,
I took a taxi, I talked to the taxi driver and he didn't answer.
Well, I said, it is his right, what do I know?
But I wasn't talking about rugby, I was talking about anything...
well, I just wanted to know if we had *** it up a lot or not.
I paid. "Yes, yes, Pichot I am going to charge you. You were a disaster". (Laughter)
And then for the first time, I think I felt I hit the bottom as sportsman.
Before I look how the group was in the team.
So I said, "Let see, what did I do wrong? There is something I did wrong. It cannot be.
I am this and that. I am a genius. I am doing something wrong. I am not that genius.
And I started to realize about that word "leader", of which
everybody talks, of the motivation, so much in fashion, right?
I realized that in order to be a good leader and to achieve
the things you want it is better to convince the person next to you.
When you help the person next to you, a very important expression:
give to the one next to you.
I started to think that way. I said, well, how can I give? What can I do to give?
And we started to think as a team. I called the oldest ones,
those of us who have several years of experience and started to talked to them. To listen to them.
And I started to hear things I didn't like.
That I was selfish, that we had made things selfishly, that we had...
I started to see another world, how it really was...
that hamster started to see and said, "it is not like that."
And I started to see that actually it was much more important
to know how the one next to you act than how you act.
Because you are sure of what you do. You know always how you act.
At least you think you know how you act.
Then you have to convince the others.
And not only to convince then, but also you have to try
to make the others to do it right or to do their best.
And my search what to see how we do this.
With Tano Loffreda, a person, for me one of the most
important person in my career, we started to talk.
To say, well, how it is to lead. How do I reach that place?
And we started to look for things.
Especially with the players. First, self-criticism, very important.
Let see, how do you do to achieve that?
And the guys said to me, well, but what's up Agustín?
I was seeing France 2007, right?
There was sometime left to play for the 2007 world championship in France.
I said, well, to play in the 2007 championship in France and do something special.
I didn't know what, but we're going to go and do it right.
And we started to look for small things.
We looked for our impossibles things. For sure all of you here have an impossible thing.
It isn't that hard. It is not because I played for Los Pumas...
all of us have something hard to go for. All of us.
And we look for the impossible things. First, the most important was to see
what had never happened to find a reference.
The team had never won in Europe.
It had never won neither in Wales nor Scotland nor in Europe.
The team had never classified among the first six in the world.
The team had never won to England
in rugby's cathedral, Twickenham.
So, what did we do? We started to convince ourselves
and get confidence that we could make it. We could win.
We could go and achieve little by little...
and not to win as we have done, sporadically, Los Pumas made a feat.
No, feats are not good for success.
We, Argentinians are very very success-obsessed, right?
We want to win now. What we were proposing was:
we do not want the expression "to win now."
We want, little by little, to build a win psychology,
which is very different from "to win now", in order to reach an scenario
like a world championship, where actually is the the best
of the best of the best, and there with everything.
And little by little, with a lot of work, a lot of sacrifice
leaving a lot of things aside.
Because, in fact, when you are asked, you know,
to pass a final exam in the faculty.
Or you have to do a work for the job or whatever.
You stop sleeping, you stop seeing your girlfriend, you stop seeing your kids.
There is sacrifice. Life without sacrifice leads to nothing.
Let alone in a sports team.
You have to work together, as talked before, with a lot of sacrifice.
Those were days of much sacrifice. Sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice.
About giving. We listened. The guys said to us:
Look Agustín, I think this is not ok.
Look, come Legui, come Juan, how do you feel?
No, this is not the way. We don't feel happy.
We gathered. Well, we changed. We went another way.
And so, little by little, we got to learn by heart.
I was sure that in each game if I open my chest
and take my heart out, any of them there would take care of it.
I was convinced. And those who were playing with me felt the same.
And this is something very hard to explain. But it happened, why?
Because we had generated confidence through sacrifice among us, right?
Because when you see someone next to you who left the family behind,
who cries because he misses them, who has to train and he can't make it because he struggles
and because it is 40 degrees of heat and because we are playing...
Well, we were going forward.
And so were our impossibles. In fact, just imagine.
One day we played against New Zealand, right?
We were all scared to death.
New Zealand is complicated in every sense.
They are all huge, never ease. They always go forward,
they pass you over. They hit you. I am one meter seventy four high.
What you see here... is all there is, right? And I was convincing the biggest ones:
"Guys, everything is ok". Everything is ok. Well. And suddenly we found ourselves, right?
Some of you know, some of you don't know. New Zealanders have no better idea
than to do a war dance before playing.
Terrific. Holding on, first me as the captain. All in front.
And you have to face out of respect
-- you see them -- the New Zealanders.
The are by no means models of a publicity agency, I can assure you, right?
All with their Maori features. And the one who is the spiritual captain of the team
sings in your face while approaching you and makes as if he is going to kill you.
Well, I was holding on, my legs were like trembling, but I kept still.
So next to me they said: "Agustín, they will kill us."
I look at them and said, "They are nervous."
I turn my back and look at them and said to myself, "No, they aren't nervous." (Laughter)
"It is obvious they aren't nervous."
But that is all about a team, to give confidence for what it is to come.
And to be convinced that it is possible.
And so the days passed until we reached "the top is not possible."
We were arriving in Paris, France. Who were we going to play against in seven days?
Against the French. Another terrific thing: a lot of luck.
People greeted us offering condolences.
Good for the Argentinians, good luck on Friday! Ok.
And so we were welcomed, actually with incredible courtesy,
with incredible politeness because we were a team
that at the end of the day was going to play against France.
And so it happened, the team arrived and started to cast doubts.
As it can happen to any of you, "Uhm, how will I do?"
"There they go, did you see, something bad can happen to me."
And I saw we were all again scared to death.
And I said, "No... we have three days left." Then I did as I used to do at night --
because I think that is what leadership is about --
I went to visit the rooms of each of the players in the hotel.
To see how they were doing. Fever, they had a fight with the girlfriend, nothing,
what happens to everybody. Another one was crying because he was not chosen, he was not playing.
Another one who will play but actually the one who plays in front..
Well, then I went to my room, close the door and said, "Uff."
Then I said to Tano, "Tano, look, this is happening."
And Tano as always, "Easy, easy, easy."
Phone. I am going to call Christophe Dominici.
Christophe Dominici, was, how can I say, well,
the symbol of French rugby, with whom we were going to play against in two days.
He is a good friend of mine. "Christophe, how are you?"
"The only one who can call at one o'clock in the morning is you", he said.
"You are awake, see? I knew you were awake."
"What's going on?", he said. "How are you?
I call to see how you are, to wish you luck, to see how you are."
"And you, how are you?"
"Good and you?"
"Good. Ah, who is playing?"
"I don't know, and you?"
"You saw the team.
Juan plays as 10, and how do you stop him?"
"No, I don't know, and you?"
It was a mad conversation, I swear.
Ten minutes of madness. But my friend Christophe made a mistake,
"Go to bed, sleep well and the day after tomorrow you will eat 40."
I hung up. It wasn't funny. I stayed up all night cla-cla-cla-cla.
Next morning, "Everybody to the lobby". We gathered and I said, "You know what?
IRB doesn't take us into account", it is like FIFA, "It doesn't take us into account.
We have doubts. We have doubts in this part
when we have been building an spectacular path.
Yesterday night I was told that we will eat 40, what did we come for?
We pack our luggage and leave. They said nothing. They disappeared,
as I wanted to disappeared just before entering." You needed to see the face of the guys.
Total transformation. I went to my room again and phoned my wife
and said: "Today we will win." Or the other night, we will win. Because this is what it is about
to generate confidence and to have built all this confidence
for the right moment [to say] Now!
But something else was missing. Something that happens after those "wins."
Triumph came, incredibly 50 to 1. Those who have bet said to us:
"I won a lot of money!" We heard on the streets of France.
And the French were muted, but actually they congratulated us:
"Brilliant, the Argentian team, brilliant".
Just after the game finished, there was an incredible euphoria. Incredible.
There I was and immediately I remember a poster which said: "take it easy Argentinians."
I said, this is nothing, this is just starting. This is just starting.
We came here to build a path that takes time,
to build it until it is finished.
This was the final of the world championship for us.
One month before we promised to us to become the world champions.
You know why? Because I insisted on it, I demanded it, to dream on the imposssible.
Let them imagine something incredible, what is more incredible than
to become world champion when playing rugby? There is nothing else.
And we were convinced that we can be world champions. We were convinced.
That is why when we lost the semifinal, for me it was -- for all of us -- it was tough.
But we moved on and finished an spectacular world championship.
In that dressing room that you just saw, that was the game we gave it all
for the last time, and it was my last game. I knew that was my last game.
That is why I said that for some this is going to be the last one.
And I was doing it as a mourning to retire and give to the team
my role in the team.
To tell you the truth if you ask me about the third place.
The truth, did you go for the third place? I said, no. Did you have success? Yes.
Because in that moment the feeling was so immense, how to describe it?
When I was telling about the heart, that what I felt. I felt realized.
In the dressing room I was huged, You would hug anybody who was there.
France was in craze. The people... but I felt realized, why?
Because we had achieved something unique. Because we were not an extraordinary team.
We were not an extraordinary team, but we wanted to do extraordinary things.
We were convinced that we could make extraordinary things.
And so it was, but overnight it finished. My dream finished there, right?
Or our dream. We had achieved something incredible.
Unique, something that will be in the history of sports, at least in ours.
And surely in the books of many sports would tell
that the weakest one could achieve things by dreaming. Being romantic, right?
And now, at 37 years old, but at that time, or just recently
to start again. New challenges.
And actually I am not afraid of the white page.
To be honest, I am not afraid. I am here to search for a dream
and to do again something different. Today was a huge challenge for me.
I haven't done it before. This is the first time I talk in front of so many people.
But I stayed the same. So look for your impossibles. Think about it.
Each one of you, think about your impossible, what can you do?
What are you going to do? Close your eyes. Think about your impossible.
(Video) (Heartbeats)
Always, at any moment, you hear your heart beating. This is basic.
Because that is what gives us energy. That is what makes us feel.
That is what makes us realize we are alive. That is the passion.
It's the dedication. It is for the next to us. What we live for?
For the pleasure, for the happiness. Yes, for the people outside.
The people outside distracts us. We stay inside. But that is what is is about.
About the challenge. About feeling that it is possible.
About feeling that in spite of anything that happens, it is possible.
Today I was thinking before coming, What am I going to talk about? How am I going to talk?
What am I going to say? I can. I have confidence.
Everybody was sending me messages of "go for it Agustín, good luck."
Because the dudes beside you are the most important to achieve this.
But always it is the heart that commands.
The heart commands, excites, the heart moves.
We have to hear it. We have to feel it. You are the same.
You live through the people around you and they live through you.
And when you face a challenge, you get nervous and what you have to live,
you have to assume it, to fight it,
because it is ultimately a huge challenge.
A challenge that has to be more than normal.
Demand the impossible. Play.
(Applause)