It could be a book signing session like any other, but ex-Racing Club, San Lorenzo and AEK Athens goalkeeper Sebastian Saja is in unfamiliar territory. That much is clear when one of his audience stands up to get his book autographed, and the Argentine asks him if he plays football.
"I used to play for the youth team at Velez," the teenager affirmed. Saja's reply was short and to the point:"What happened?"
"I went down the wrong path and I took a bullet in the back; now I'm in here."
Here, to be more precise, is the Villa Nueva Esperanza prison unit for young offenders, a few kilometres outside of La Plata. Those inside are aged between 16 and 18, raised on the margins of society before slipping inexorably into a violent lifestyle. Life in the institute is grim: bars on the windows, and eight beds to each damp-ridden cell.
Saja has come to Nueva Esperanza to encourage the inmates to read, and what better way than using a book about football, Pelotas de Papel, which includes many short stories written by footballers themselves.
"I used to read absolutely nothing, it was hard. But the first book I read was Alive, about the Uruguayan rugby players, kids like you, who survived 72 days in the Andes," the 37-year-old tells those listening in the Nueva Esperanza multi-purpose room.
"I'm telling you this, because your first book is like your first time. It is something you never forget. I would love for you guys to remember Pelota de Papel and us, the people that brought these stories to you."
El Chino is accompanied by Monica Fantino, the coach of a girls' football team in the Villa 31 shanty town located in the heart of Buenos Aires; and Juanky Jurado, the book producer. "We are like cats, all of us have seven lives," Jurado says after hearing the story of the young Velez promise whose budding career was ended by a bullet in the back.
The focus of attention, however, is Saja, champion of the Argentine Primera Division with both San Lorenzo and Racing in his distinguished career, as well as lying 13th in the list of top-scoring goalkeepers. He asks the kids where they are from, if they study while inside, if they help in the kitchen, their plans once they are released. Not a natural student as a youngster, he speaks of reading with the fervour of a newly converted evangelical.
"I am 37. I work in a profession where you are an old man at that age. I don't have long left. But just one and a half years ago I finished High School, I had to fulfil a promise," he revealed.
La increíble experiencia de @sajasebastianok en un penal de menores. Impresionante todo. https://t.co/52bPZ3Jd72 pic.twitter.com/y1y82XbUPB
— Ezequiel Scher (@zequischer) 6 July 2016
"When I was 16 I had to abandon school for football because I was travelling all the time. I promised my parents that I would finish it one day. My mother is no longer with us, but I still have to hold my promise to her. My children looked and me and they saw dad left home with a bookbinder.
"I used to think: 'One day I'm going to have to tell them to study, but if I didn't finish school I can't be any sort of example. I graduated and it was as sweet as scoring a goal or saving a penalty."
Before he leaves the literature class in the unit promises Saja they will write their own stories and send them to him. El Chino in turn promises to return to Nueva Esperanza in time for afternoon tea. As he left, however, he could not hide his concern over what the future might hold for those troubled youths.
"They are in here and the courts have already decided their sentences, fine. But some day they are going to come out and they have to be able to re-enter society," he says.
Nobody is the same after setting foot in a prison, no matter what side of the bars you stand. Two hours of telling his stories and hearing the kids' experiences left a profound mark on both Saja and his audience, and it will be a long time before they forget the day that one of the biggest names in Argentine football invited them to read, think and learn. - Goal