For 12 days, an entire community clung to hope. Junior Romero, a Venezuelan soccer coach, his wife Diana Narváez, and their four children —Karin, Khamil, Mariano, and Maximiliano— were trapped when the Residencias Caribe collapsed in La Guaira state after the June 24 earthquakes.
On Monday, July 6, rescuers found what everyone feared. Junior was not just any coach: he came through the youth divisions of Deportivo La Guaira, was an assistant coach at Zamora Fútbol Club, and had in his blood the trade of his father, the renowned head coach Alfarabi “Pin” Romero.
The Academia Socopó Soccer Club bid him farewell with a statement that today is circulating through all of Venezuelan soccer amid tears. An entire family, united until the very last second beneath the rubble.