The murder of La Plata

RAÚL BARANDIARÁN has a name that tells a story of its own. One grandfather is Italian, the other Basque, from a small village near San Sebastián. “When I go back there I feel like a separatist,” he says with the hint of a smile, or perhaps it’s a wry grin, “and I feel loved.”

Raúl is the sole survivor of the original Club La Plata first XV of 1975, an Argentine rugby team. Over the course of four years, 20 of his team-mates were murdered: gunned down, assassinated, ‘disappeared’, in an attempt to tear a generation – and an entire squad – out by its roots, leaving them with no way to rebuild. But Raúl