Fan 88235: Pope Francis honoured by hometown soccer team in Argentina

By Lucinda Elliott and Matias Baglietto

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentina-born Pope Francis, who died on Monday, is being honoured at his local hometown soccer club in Buenos Aires, San Lorenzo de Almagro, where the football-loving head of the Roman Catholic Church remained a member during his 12-year papacy.

Fans from the first-tier Primera División club started gathering from Monday at the club's chapel to the south-west of the Argentine capital to bid farewell to their best-known member.

"The pope leaves an unbreakable legacy," San Lorenzo Club President Marcelo Moretti told Reuters. "For all San Lorenzo fans, he was a source of great pride. It is a very sad day."

At the chapel fans lit candles near a statue of Francis adorned with the team's red and navy blue colors.

San Lorenzo fans took to social media on news of the pope's death to point out that his club membership number - 88235N-0 - coincided exactly with his age and the time of death.

"He died at 88 years old, at 2:35am (in Buenos Aires, 0535 GMT) and was member 88235. It really caught my attention," wrote one San Lorenzo fan on X.

The club confirmed the pope's membership number to Reuters.

Special commemorative jerseys will be worn for Saturday's match against Rosario Central, Moretti said, with players hoping to secure victory for the pontiff, whose funeral will be held in the Vatican on the same day.

Several other Argentine teams suspended matches on Monday as a mark of respect.

Oscar Lucchini, who runs the club's chapel, showed Reuters old photos of Francis holding a San Lorenzo jersey as well as a print-out of his club membership card. Lucchini's colleague Laura Magrino held up a team shirt made in honour of the pope.

'GREAT EMOTION'

Moretti said he had met Francis several times, most recently last September to ask permission to name a new stadium after him in the Boedo neighborhood where the club is based.

"He accepted, with great emotion," Moretti told Reuters.

Pope Francis was born Jorge Mario Bergoglio into an Italian migrant family in Buenos Aires in 1936, at a time when soccer had already become Argentina's most popular sport, said author Jimmy Burns, biographer of 'Francis: The Pope of Good Promise'.

Soccer was especially popular in less affluent neighborhoods of Buenos Aires through clubs like San Lorenzo, which had been founded by a Catholic priest in 1908 and was Francis' chosen team growing up.

The club became the 1946 champions, Moretti said, going on to secure several stunning victories during a European tour the following year which brought the team international attention.

Francis became a life-long soccer fan despite rarely playing himself in his younger days due to health issues.

"He tended to read rather than play sport," Burns told Reuters, but he liked watching games live at San Lorenzo or catching the occasional World Cup match on TV.

After becoming pope in 2013, Francis never returned to Argentina but he hosted many of the country's sporting greats at the Vatican, including soccer icons Lionel Messi and Diego Maradona. Sport is a great leveler, Francis once said.

Maradona, who died in 2020, said Pope Francis had restored his Catholic faith after they met in 2014. Messi would later be granted a papal audience of his own from which he said he also emerged spiritually refreshed.

(Reporting by Lucinda Elliott and Matías Baglietto; Editing by Adam Jourdan and Gareth Jones)