Upset of the year: How Ricardo Galindo, Isaias Aguirre stunned Brazil’s Evandro and Arthur
Ricardo Galindo dives for a ball at a NORCECA/NORCECA photo
TLAXCALA, MEXICO — Ricardo Galindo waved his hands, commanding the few thousand fans crammed into the Apizaco Bullring to get on their feet, to unleash the spirited and cerveza-fueled cheers Mexican beach volleyball fans have become so known for. He pumped his fists. Hugged his partner. A big moment.
Except for the fact that it was just four points into the match.
At that juncture of the opening set, a 3-1 lead for Mexico, it could have been seen as a sort of adorable moment, the massive underdog — Galindo and his partner, Isaias Aguirre, the 40 seed matched up with Brazil’s Evandro and Arthur, No. 11 in the world — claiming the spotlight that would, surely, inevitably, shift to Brazil. Forty minutes down the road, a similar scene was playing out in the Tlaxcala Bullring, where Italians Sam Cottafava and Paolo Nicolai were opening their World Championships against Mexico’s Gabriel Cruz and Jorge Barajas. Cruz blocked Cottafava on the opening point of the match, a 1-0 lead. Like Galindo, he commanded the crowd, waving them to their feet. Like in Apizaco, the crowd willingly obliged.
Bedlam.
Shortlived.
Cottafava and Nicolai would ignore that first point and go about their business in a 21-9, 21-11 thrashing. Most watching the two matches side by side could have anticipated a parallel storyline. Only Galindo and Aguirre wouldn’t go away. In fact, they did just the opposite, extending their lead to 7-2, a lead they’d sustain, all the way to 21-17.
Great teams lose sets all the time. Even Norway’s Anders Mol and Christian Sorum will drop a puzzler from time to time. For Evandro and Arthur to snooze through an opening set to an overmatched team, in the biggest tournament of the year, in a night match, against Mexico, in Mexico — well, crazier things have happened.
Few crazier things have happened than the second set.
An 11-7 Brazil lead disappeared in a cloud of blocks and errors. A 12-12 tie soon became, unbelievably once more, a Mexico lead, and then a Mexico win, a 21-17, 21-18 shocker, perhaps the biggest upset I’ve seen in nearly a decade following the sport.
It begs multiple questions, first and foremost: Who in the world are Ricardo Galindo and Isaias Aguirre?
NORCECA guys, in short.
Galindo and Aguirre have played three NORCECAs together in the last three years. They have been slightly better than bad, finishing tenth in Aguascalientes, Mexico, last April, where Tim Brewster and I beat them 21-9, 21-13 in our first round of pool. Just last week, in the Dominican Republic, they were easily swept in the bronze medal match by Canadians Jake MacNeil and Alex Russell.
And now they’re beating Evandro, a two-time Olympian and one of the best offensive players in the world, and Arthur, a team with five semifinals in Challenges and Elite16s this season alone?
Disbelief was the word amongst my peers ranging from Canada to the USA to the Virgin Islands who have played Galindo and Aguirre in NORCECAs. They’d never once lost to them, never even so much as dropped a set. This in spite of Galindo, in a different life, having a legitimately solid resume, having logged previous wins over Andre Loyola and Dan Dearing in 2016. Aguirre, at 21 years old, is young but packs a cannon, both on big swings, which tormented Brazil all evening, and at the service line. Once, down 14-20 to me and Tim Brewster at a NORCECA in Varadero, Cuba, he aced us five times in six attempts, which he can do as likely as he can miss six in a row. His mindset at the service line is not all that dissimilar from Evandro, the five-time FIVB Server of the Year.
Only he hit the majority of his serves in bounds on Friday night whereas Evandro did not. Aguirre finished with three aces to three errors, the perfect ratio. Evandro had zero aces and three errors. It isn’t entirely surprising this is a venue Evandro in which could have struggled. The altitude is more than 7,300 feet, rendering most jump-serves too risky to attempt, with the possibility of it sailing long increasing with every added meter of altitude. When jump-serves are in, they’re done so carefully, with little pace on them. It is not an ace-friendly environment, and Brazil is largely reliant upon Evandro’s serving to score points. When that superpower is removed, weird results can happen.
There were more variables at play, of course. Arthur hit 12 errors, missing a number of his usually-reliable high lines just wide. Evandro tacked on another six and only registered five kills, finishing with a hitting percentage in the negatives. Galindo and Aguirre, meanwhile, played within their means, hitting 12 errors, keeping both of their percentages higher than Evandro and Arthur’s.
Galindo’s five blocks to Evandro’s zero was the final ingredient on the perfect recipe for bedlam in Apizaco.
So go right ahead, Galindo. Wave your arms to the crowd. Command their adulation.
The upset of the year is yours.
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