Watching him play, seeing the drive, the precision of his touch, the strength of his punches and that constant siege of the opposing goal, these days I have realized that field hockey, the one that is within my reach right now, is a sport for mischievous and scholars.

It is for artists, for teachers, to hit a ball smaller than a baseball, master it, wherever it comes from, and take it to the ground with a stick between 91 and 97 centimeters long and narrow.

In addition, Carlos Manuel Consuegra does the difficult with ease. That sport is boring, would say those who have not had the pleasure of applauding titles and more titles won by successive generations of athletes who have contributed magma to El Volcán avileño, that hockey team that is difficult to turn off, because since they are little there is no other alternative or another word or another script that is not win, win and win... Moreover, mourning, tears and discontent just hearing the word lose.

Accumulating 22 youth titles in the men's branch, 15 first category championships, 8 in school games and 2 first category in the women's branch constitutes a good harvest for the showcase of any sport. Ciego de Ávila can boast of having it.

Carlos Manuel is made of that lineage, a name more artistic than sporting, which does not attract, perhaps; It does not attract attention or sound like a sporty rhythm, as is the case of others, let's say, Germán, Antonio, Braudilio, Omar, Daniel, Mijaín, Téofilo... You say Catín and immediately the sticks are raised from East to West as a sign of respect, because today he is the best hockey player in Cuba, at a time when many other renowned players are not.

Hilario Yera Díaz, director of the national team in this discipline, said that he aspires to win the Central American Games, as they have always done, and in that endeavor Carlos Manuel is a mainstay: "He will carry the weight of the Cuban team on his shoulders, With the work he does up front, with the drive, with not giving up, because of the technique he has and his nose for goal.

The specialist was so right that in the last game against Santiago de Cuba Catín returned, after his sprain, blows to the legs and a blow with a cane, without intention? In the face, he shone again in the final game, in which Ciego de Ávila beat the indomitable team (4-1); Carlos Manuel returned, household name but not war; He returned and was the best of a choral concert in which everyone contributed, but no one like him: 10 goals, more than half of those scored by his team.

When he enters the field, he believes he deserves everything, to the point that in the sport of the humpbacked canes at the end they gave him the nickname of El Matador. «I give my all in training and I prepare with the same intensity as when I joined the national team at the age of 18. I started in sports at the age of five, thanks to my brother, Maikel Trizant. I am 27 years old and my calluses don't even hurt, although my legs and arms are full of marks, from blows. In his showcase he treasures 14 titles, including school, youth and first category, and the seventh crown in a row, just won in the last national tournament recently concluded in Ciego de Ávila, the province of his life.

It also treasures the Central American Championship in Barranquilla, Colombia, and sixth place in the Pan American Games in Lima, Peru.

Besides, in his brain he retains the same script that they inoculate the hockey players from Ciego de Avila when they arrive as beginners: win, win, win. That is why he is equally interested in the victories and the goals of a confrontation cap than of an Olympics.

He takes a full-length self-portrait: «I have my friends in hockey, but when I enter the field there are 60 minutes of opponents, as if I did not know them; when I go out they are again and I give them my soul, my heart, if I could».

One of his contemporaries, a bitter rival and friend—Miguel Aroche O'Farrill, goalkeeper for Havana and the Cuba team—draws him: “You always see him in the fight, the constant siege; They hit him with the stick, try to neutralize him and he laughs, as if he were making fun of the marking, the blows and the opponent. Sometimes, emotion or personal value betrays him, I say, because he blurts out at you, and if he can, he gives you a "light" warning touch with his cane, but what bothers me the most is when he tells me: 'Pastilla, today I have two goals for you, and he fulfills the prophecy».