Sometimes when one stands far above their contemporaries, detractors will try to label them as selfish players, not about the team. The problem with that statement comes when these supposedly selfish players are on teams that win.
Such is the fate of Argentina’s greatest polo player, Adolfo Cambiaso, Jr, also known as Adolfito and Dolfi in admirable tones. Cambiaso has won many team championships while maintaining the highest level of skill and professionalism that polo has ever seen. He is one of the few players in history who has attained the level of 10-goal handicap.
Adolfo Cambiaso was born on April 15, 1975 in Cañuelas, Buenos Aires Province. His father was also named Adolfo, and was, at the time, a great polo player himself. He started playing polo when he was very young, but took to the game easily. By the age of 12 he had already reached the 1-goal handicap level, and a year later, he reached a 3-goal handicap. As over 90% of all polo players are a 2-goal handicap or less, this showed that Cambiaso had great skill.
The same year he earned his 3-goal handicap, he also won his first championship, the Eduardo Heguy Cup with the La Martina team, playing with his father. He followed that up by winning the Campaña del Desierto Cup in San Diego at age 14, and the Renault Cup Open with La Martina at age 15, reaching a 6-goal handicap level.
Being prodigious and talented in a sport played all over the world, Cambiaso hit the travel circuit, while also playing tournaments in Argentina. In the four year period from 1990 to 1994, the teams he played for won a staggering 24 tournaments. In 1991 he won the Gold Cup and the Warwickshire Cup both in England. In Argentina he won the El Gráfico Cup, the Renault Cup Open and the Camara de Diputados Cup, bumping him up to a 7-goal handicap. In 1992, with the Ellerstina team, he scored 16 times, setting the record for the most number of goals in one match. He ended up the year having become a 9-goal handicap player.
However, 1994 was his greatest year. His Ellerstina team won polo’s version of the Triple Crown, the Abierto de Tortugas, Abierto de Hurlingham and Abierto Argentino de Palermo, which finally elevated him to the level of a 10-goal handicap player at 19 years old.
Over the next four years, Cambiaso won even more tournaments, 31 in all, including the World Cup of the Americas in 1995 in the United States, the Copa República Argentina from 1996 through 1998, the Queen’s Cup and Prince of Wales Trophy in England in 1998 and 1999, the U.S. Open in 1999 (also in 2000 and 2001), the Copa de Plata and Copa de Oro in Spain in 1999. He also started his own team, La Dolfina, in 1997.
During this time, he also received some individual awards. He won the Olimpia de Plata award as the top Argentine polo player of 1997, and was named the best player at the final of the Abierto Argentino in 1997.
Around this time, he also met his future wife, model and television personality Maria Vazquez, at a photo shoot for Gente magazine. As well known as he was in his country, she had no idea who he was, other than being introduced to him as being the top polo player in Argentina, while she was named top model in Argentina at the same time. They became the early version of what David and Victoria Beckham are today, only much quieter, as Cambiaso, as world renown as he is, also happens to be fairly shy in public. They married after a couple of years in a small private ceremony.
Since 2000, his fame has only grown stronger, such that even one of his horses, named Aiken Cura, was named as one of the greatest polo horses in history. His La Dolfina Team continues to be successful, winning the Argentine Open in 2005, 2006 and 2007, with the 2005 team defeated Ellerstina by 20-19, the highest score in Argentine Open finals match history. He also plays for other teams around the world and continues winning championships. In 2009, he played for the first time in the Middle East in the inaugural Desert Palm Nations Cup, playing on the UAE team; they won