.jpg) Alcántara atBarcelona in the 1920s | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Paulino Alcántara Riestrá | ||
| Date of birth | (1896-10-07)7 October 1896 | ||
| Place of birth | Concepcion,Iloilo,Captaincy General of the Philippines | ||
| Date of death | 13 February 1964(1964-02-13) (aged 67) | ||
| Place of death | Barcelona,Spain | ||
| Height | 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in) | ||
| Position | Striker | ||
| Youth career | |||
| FC Galeno | |||
| Barcelona | |||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1912–1916 | Barcelona | 128 | (133) |
| 1916–1918 | Bohemian | 23 | (24) |
| 1918–1927 | Barcelona | 276 | (274) |
| Total | 427 | (431) | |
| International career | |||
| 1915–1926 | Catalonia | 7 | (8) |
| 1917 | Philippines | 11 | (14) |
| 1921–1923 | Spain | 14 | (19) |
| Managerial career | |||
| 1951 | Spain | ||
| 1953 | Catalonia | ||
Medal record | |||
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Paulino Alcántara Riestrá (7 October 1896 – 13 February 1964) was a professionalfootball player and manager who played as aforward. Born in the Philippines, he played for theCatalonia,Philippines, andSpain[1] national teams.[2]
Alcántara made his debut forBarcelona at the age of 15, and remains the youngest player to play or score for the club. He scored 395[3] goals in 399 matches, a club record that stood for 87 years.[4][5] He also won a total of 19 trophies including 10 Catalan leagues, 5 Copa del Rey, 2 Pyrenees Cup and 2 Philippine league championship titles during his 15 year career.
After retiring as a player in 1927 at the age of 31, he became adoctor and served as club director of Barcelona between 1931 and 1934. He also enteredpolitics becoming a member of a conservative fascist political group and participated in theSpanish Civil War in 1936 as asoldier in theSpanish Army.[6] In 1951, he became a coach and managed Spain for three games, and he also became the President of the FC Barcelona Player Association in 1959.
In 2007, Alcántara was officially recognized byFIFA as one of the greatest football strikers in the 20th century and in the history[7] of football, and the best[8] Asian male[9] footballer of all time.[10]
Alcántara was born and raised inConcepcion,Iloilo, in the Spanish colony of thePhilippines in 1896. He was the son of Don Eduardo de Alcántara y Garchitorena, a Filipino borncriollo Spaniard from Manila, and Doña Victoriana Riestrá, a Filipinamestiza of mixed Spanish origin from Iloilo.[11][12]
He was raised there until he was three years old when his family moved to Barcelona fleeing from the conflicts of thePhilippine Revolution's war of independence from Spain, the same year that FC Barcelona was formed byJoan Gamper.[13]
InSpain, Alcántara started playing for FC Galeno, a Barcelona-based club that was founded by and largely made up of medical students and young doctors with their games played in the courtyard of a local hospital. He immediately impressed and in February 1912 he was scouted by Barcelona's president Joan Gamper who attended a Galeno match.[14] Alcántara then joined Barcelona's youth team and within the same week, he made his first-team debut at the age of 15 years, 4 months and 18 days on 25 February 1912 againstCatalá SC (founded only weeks before FC Barcelona) in theCampionat de Catalunya (Catalan football championship) at theCamp de la Indústria, in front of about 100 fans. Barcelona won that game 9–0, with Alcántara scoring the first three goals of the game, setting the still unbroken record for being the youngest player to ever play and score for FC Barcelona in an official match.[13] He was also the youngest hat-trick scorer in the world at the time,[15] a record that stood for 84 years. Among his teammates during his time at the club[16] wereFrancisco Bru Sanz,Jack Greenwell,Romà Forns and club captain, also fellow countryman,Manuel Amechazurra. He went on to help the club win twoCampionat de Catalunya in 1913 and 1916 and the1913 Copa del Rey (Spanish Cup), in which he missed thefinal that ended in a 2–2 draw withReal Sociedad, but then played in the replay as Barcelona came-out as 2-1 winners.[17]
In 1916, Alcántara's parents returned to the Philippines during a time when it was under the territorial control of theUnited States, took their sons and daughters with them. There Alcántara continued his studies in medicine and played football for the country's reigning championsBohemian Sporting Club. He helped the club win two more Philippine Championships in 1917 and 1918 after the team was coming off of two title defenses. He was selected by theUnited States Philippine national football team in1917 and represented his country at theFar Eastern Championship Games in Tokyo, helping them defeatJapan and getting in the scoresheet of the 15–2 victory, which is still the Philippines' biggest win in international football. Besides being a footballer, he was also a talented table tennis player and represented the Philippines on that sport as well. Meanwhile, Barcelona had failed to win a major trophy in his absence and the club pleaded in vain with his parents to allow him to return to Spain. However, he contracted malaria while in Manila in 1917 and apparently refused to take the prescribed medication in what was still an underdeveloped country. Thanks to his persistence of not getting cured there he was allowed to go back and took his medication in Spain.
After returning to Barcelona, his former teammate and managerJack Greenwell experimented by playing Alcántara as a defender, but Alcántara did not succeed in that position. The paying members of Barça's club membership, "Els Socis," demanded that Alcántara be switched back to his normal position, which saw him return to the forward line.[18] In 1919, he helped the club win another Campionat de Catalunya. The club also reached the1919 Copa del Rey Final but lost 2–5 toArenas Club de Getxo, courtesy of ahat-trick from future teammateFélix Sesúmaga.[19] On 13 April 1919 in a game at Les Corts againstReal Sociedad, Alcántara scored the "police goal," when a policeman got in the way of a powerful shot, so both the ball and policeman ended up in the back of the net.[20] In 1920 the club won another Copa del Rey and the Campionat de Catalunya, with Alcántara scoring in the 2–0 win overAthletic Bilbao in the Cup final. The squad includedEmilio Sagi Liñán, who formed a partnership with Alcántara as well asRicardo Zamora,Josep Samitier andFélix Sesúmaga. This marked the beginning of the club's first golden era and saw them dominate both the Campionat de Catalunya and the Copa del Rey. Alcántara scored twice in the1922 Cup final, where Barcelona defeatedReal Unión 5–1 and scored the winning goal in the 3–2 win overAtlético Madrid in the1926 final.[21]
Like many other FC Barcelona players at that time, Alcántara was summoned to play for theCatalonian national team several times, making his debut on 3 January 1915 against the “North team” (a Basque Country XI). In May 1915, he was a member of the Catalan side that participated inthe first edition of thePrince of Asturias Cup, an inter-regional competition organized by theRFEF.[22] He scored the first-ever goal of the competition in the opening game against theCentro team (a Castile/Madrid XI), which ended in a 2–1 win, but a loss to North in the following game prevented them from winning the tournament. Alcántara also represented Catalonia inthe last edition of the Prince of Asturias Cup in 1926, which was a two-legged tie between the previous two champions, Catalonia andAsturias, for the right to keep the trophy, and Alcántara netted in the second leg in a 4–3 win, thus contributing decisively in helping Catalonia to win a record-breaking third Prince of Asturias Cup title.[23][24]
In 1917 he was selected by the U.S. Philippines national team and represented the country at theFar Eastern Championship Games in Tokyo, helping them defeatJapan 15–2, which became the Philippines' biggest win in international football.[25]
In 1920 Alcántara, along with Zamora, Samitier and Sesúmaga, was selected to represent Spain at the1920 Summer Olympics. However, Alcántara chose to stay at home to take his final medical exams. Without him, Spain was eliminated in the quarter-finals by the eventual championsBelgium, the same team against which he eventually made his debut on 7 October 1921, aged 25, scoring both goals in a 2–0 win. In 1922, he was nicknamed "El Rompe Redes" or "Trencaxarxes" (the net breaker) after he broke the goal's net with a shot during a match againstFrance.[26] In total, he made five appearances and scored a then-national record of six goals for Spain between 1921 and 1927.[27]
Alcántara retired on 3 July 1927 in order to become a doctor at age 31, the same day that FC Barcelona played against Spain in atestimonial match in his honour. He later served as a club director between 1931 and 1934. Alcántara was one of the first footballers to write memoirs of his playing days.[28] In 1951, Alcántara was one of three selectors, along withFélix Quesada andLuís Iceta, that coached Spain for three games againstSwitzerland,Belgium andSweden. He won one game and tied the other two.[18]
Alcántara was club director from 1931 to 1934 and was president of FC Barcelona Players Association in 1959.[29]
In 1916, Alcántara, along with his family returned to the Philippines, traveling by ocean liner, to settle back in their homeland. While there, he studied medicine and played professional football in the Philippine Domestic League, but the situation with FC Barcelona meant that in 1918, he returned to Spain to play for the club due to the high demands of his footballing services. Most of his family members stayed in the Philippines, while he travelled back to Spain to continue with his football career. From the mid-1920s he combined his professional football career with the practice of becoming a doctor.
In the 1930s, Alcántara entered politics and was a member of theFalange Española,[30] the variant ofSpanish Fascism. On 4 August 1936, he became a soldier and fled to Andorra and France after Franco's coup failed to take the city of Barcelona on 18 July 1936. In 1936 Alcántara was a Carlist volunteer and participated in numerous military operations of thenationalist troops ofFrancisco Franco.During theSpanish Civil War, Alcántara was Lieutenant of the first battalion of the Brigade Legionary Black Arrows[31] (Frecce Nere). The Black Arrows was a volunteer corps (Corpo Truppe Volontarie) directed directly byBenito Mussolini.With the Black Arrows, Alcántara served on the fronts of Guadalajara, Aragon and Catalonia. WithGeneral Yagüe, he entered the city ofBarcelona victoriously on 26 January 1939.
After the Spanish Civil War, Alcántara lived in Barcelona and was Lieutenant of the Black Arrows.During theSpanish State andWorld War II period, Alcántara was a Chief of theFalange Española Tradicionalista y de las JONS.[32]
Alcántara was married to Blanca López, a Spaniard from Barcelona, with whom he had two sons, the eldest being Eduardo Alcántara López.
Alcántara was the son of Don Eduardo de Alcántara y Garchitorena, a criollo Filipino from Manila who served as a soldier in theSpanish Army, and Doña Victoriana Riestrá y Cauilán, a Filipina of mixed Spanish origin from Iloilo. Alcántara was one of seven children born to a largeSpanish Filipino family, and he had three brothers and three sisters. His siblings were Fernándo, Eduardo, Diego María Tomás Ramón José Ceferino, María Victoria, Maria de la Paz, and Josefa, whom were all born and raised in the Philippines.[33]
Alcántara maintained his Spanish nationality throughout his life, and he was also a sovereign Philippine citizen.[34]
Alcántara fell ill of a rare condition ofaplastic anaemia and died in 1964 at the age of 67 in Barcelona and is laid to rest in Cementiri deles Corts inBarcelona,Catalonia, next toCamp Nou football Stadium inSpain.
Alcántara, an iconic figure in world football, is known for his achievements withFC Barcelona, winning a record of 10 Spanish League: Catalan Football Championship titles,[35] 5 Copa del Rey and 2 Pyrenees Cup between the 1910s and the 1920s, and scoring 395 goals in 399 matches; a club record which was broken by Argentine footballerLionel Messi about a century later in 2014.[36] He is regarded byFIFA as one of the greatest football strikers in the history[37] of football, and the best Asian footballer of all-time.[38] Alcántara is also regarded by Barcelona as one of its great legends, being immortalized at the club's Hall of Fame museum at Barcelona. He was also a popular political figure in Spain during the 1930s. However, even with football being the most popular sport in the world,[39] Alcántara had limited recognition back in his native country, the Philippines, until the 2010s, partially caused by a surge of popularity amongst a new generation of football fans and interest infootball in the Philippines.[40]
In 2018, the domestic cup tournament of thePhilippines Football League, theCopa Paulino Alcántara was named in his honor. He was also named part of thePhilippine Sports Hall of Fame in 2021.[41] In 2016, FIFA also officially paid tribute to Alcántara's legacy by featuring him as a FIFA legends football player onFIFA 16[42] andFIFA 21 video games.
Alcántara was one of several Filipino footballers to have played in the Spanish League, includingEduardo Teus fromReal Madrid,Juan Torena,Gregorio Querejeta fromReal Zaragoza andAtlético Madrid, Ignacio Larrauri, Julio Uriate,Manuel Amechazurra from FC Barcelona, Felipe Calderon,Marcelino Gálatas fromReal Sociedad, José María Echengoyen and José Luís Querejeta.
| Club | Season | Copa d'Espanya | Cup | Regional | Pyrenees Cup | Friendly | Total | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Division | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | Apps | Goals | ||
| FC Barcelona | 1911–12 | La Liga | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 5 |
| 1912–13 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 20 | 22 | 25 | 31 | ||
| 1913–14 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 30 | 23 | 37 | 24 | ||
| 1914–15 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 23 | 29 | 32 | 33 | ||
| 1915–16 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 11 | 25 | 0 | 0 | 14 | 12 | 29 | 41 | ||
| 1917–18 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 | 6 | 4 | ||
| 1918–19 | 0 | 0 | 5 | 7 | 12 | 11 | 0 | 0 | 21 | 29 | 38 | 47 | ||
| 1919–20 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 3 | 9 | 14 | 0 | 0 | 29 | 34 | 41 | 51 | ||
| 1920–21 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 13 | 19 | 20 | ||
| 1921–22 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 8 | 8 | 19 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 18 | 24 | 45 | ||
| 1922–23 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 7 | 0 | 0 | 32 | 32 | 40 | 39 | ||
| 1923–24 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 8 | 7 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 36 | 29 | 50 | 41 | ||
| 1924–25 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 4 | 13 | 4 | ||
| 1925–26 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 3 | 14 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 7 | 28 | 14 | ||
| 1926–27 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 6 | 17 | 10 | ||
| 1932–33 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 0 | ||
| Total | 2 | 5 | 37 | 35 | 99 | 100 | 3 | 3 | 264 | 264 | 405 | 407 | ||
| Career total | 2 | 5 | 37 | 35 | 99 | 100 | 3 | 3 | 264 | 264 | 405 | 407 | ||
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 9 October 1921 | San Mamés Stadium,Bilbao, Spain |  Belgium | 1–0 | 2–0 | Friendly |
| 2. | 2–0 | |||||
| 3. | 18 December 1921 | Campo de O'Donnell,Madrid, Spain |  Portugal | 1–0 | 3–1 | |
| 4. | 2–0 | |||||
| 5. | 30 April 1922 | Stade Sainte-Germaine,Le Bouscat, France |  France | 1–0 | 4–0 | |
| 6. | 2–0 |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 10 May 1917 | Shibaura Ground,Tokyo, Japan |  Japan | 2–0 | Far Eastern Championship | |
| 2 | ?-? | |||||
| 3 | ?–? | |||||
| 4 | ?–? | |||||
| 5 | ?–? | |||||
| 6 | ?–? |
| No. | Date | Venue | Opponent | Score | Result | Competition |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | 19 May 1915 | Campo de O'Donnell,Madrid, Spain |  Castile | 1–0 | 2–1 | 1915 Prince of Asturias Cup |
| 2. | 6 February 1921 | Camp Muntaner,Barcelona, Spain |  South West France | 5–1 | Friendly | |
| 3. | ||||||
| 4. | 3 April 1921 | Camp Muntaner,Barcelona, Spain | Badalona | 4–0 | Friendly | |
| 5. | 19 September 1926 | Guinardó,Barcelona, Spain |  Asturias | 3–1 | 4–3 | 1926 Prince of Asturias Cup |
FC Barcelona
Bohemian S.C.
Philippine national football team
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
