Amancio Amaro, pure show

“I loved football. My illusion was to play and playEchoes of the interruptions of Luis Suárez, Manolo Lechuga, or the shorter Rodolfo Rábade were still echoing, and there was talk of a grown-up boy who was a regular in the city “rellenado de San Diego”. Between the streets of San Luis and Vizcaya. It was Amancio Amaro. (1939). The ceiling was unthinkable. As the son of a greengrocer and a painter, he took his first steps in Victoria de Santa Lucía. with that team a lasting taste for good football and with Jaime Blanco, sports. Another example of Coruña player. One of the best. But this one was different: direct, gorgeous, not just good, pumping and plastic. There are those who see two fine lines in the history of this epic. One that unites Ramón González and Amancio Amaro, and the other puts Chacho on the same plane as Luis Suárez, Lechuga or Carlos Pellicer. The truth is that A Coruña gave birth to another football player without a relapse. It would mark an era in world football. The sixties and seventies were his at Deportivo, at Real Madrid and in Europe.

The Amaro surname was unknown to A Coruña fans. His uncle Norberto, better known as Chato, played at the Riazor stadium in the late 1940s. Celta had to love their nephew for Deportivo to decide to sign a football player who is already well-known in the city’s grassroots football. They could prove their skills in the farm field. “It’s true that they want me in Vigo.. I don’t know if Deportivo has tried to hire me before, but at least when I was 15 or 16 I had no proof of that. To be honest, I didn’t care at the time. I was a kid and like everyone else at that age I just wanted to have fun playing football,” he admits today in first person. They almost took him away after a game for the Galician team. It wasn’t. Keskin’s football would reach Riazor in the late 50s. In 1958, he was already in the A team. He made his debut with Eduardo Toba and was reinforced by Hilario Marrero, one of the cornerstones of blue and white history, the same person who designed the Victoria who raised it. Amancio Amaro, one of the few who did not eventually pass Rodrigo’s hand, had his beginnings closely related to the canary. Quality football and punch. Vertical. Show.

When Amancio signed a contract with Real Madrid, he moved his position closer to the opposite goal, but swelled to score in A Coruña as well. About fifty in two years, almost thirty in the last year. It didn’t take long for Real Madrid to knock on his door. He spent almost five years in the Second Division with Deportivo in blue and white. His last service was to leave his city’s team in the First Division. They were only able to achieve this when he and his partner Veloso reached the top as athletes. Both would coincide with Jaime Blanco, a third member of that team, at Real Madrid. “Veloso was a very fast and talented forward.” More than fifty years have passed, but Amancio perfectly X-rayed his comrade during a historic expedition at Riazor. They had scored more than forty goals a year ago and the man from Santiago was the top scorer. 61-62, they were going to repeat the points that season, but the Coruña native proudly remembers the 27 goals he scored. Pichichi stayed at home. They went from one to the other, with the award that Deportivo returned to the First Division five years later. It was Ochoa’s project, the team of Aurre, Manín, Pegaso… they were promoted at the Indautxu field and the party at Hotel Vizcaya in Bilbao was huge. Arriving at the marina is even bigger, truly enormous. There was Amancio. This was his true legacy. The return to the elite came as a logical conclusion after a stratospheric season that many remember the match against Burgos at the Riazor stadium (6-1 and four goals) or a boost at Gijón (2-4). “It was great to play for my city’s team. The illusion was too big for a young man like me and we were there to get promoted.” points in the first person plural to minimize the significance in this achievement. His personal successes at Dépor led him to pre-selection and signing for Real Madrid for the 1962 World Cup in Chile, where he fell at the last minute. Being still a Second Division player hurt him to make his debut at the big planet event.

“The money they offered was good, but it wasn’t easy to get out.”. Amancio went to the capital that summer when he was supposed to be in South America. In the sixties he started an unhealthy tradition in Dépor. The Coruña team was always billing their stars for a few coins. Veloso, Jaime Blanco, Pellicer, Manolete… Many of them then made their way to different destinations. Of course the club has always started to resist and as a result of its bellicose stance in negotiations for Amancio, The transfer was a record for that period. Amaro targeted for 12 million pesetas, Miche’s rights and transfers of Ruiz, Betancort and Cebrián (the latter did not wear blue and white). Sevilla, Oviedo and even Barça wanted him. “At Hotel Atlántico I met Mr. Tamburini (a textile businessman who does business for the culé club and has already bought Luis Suárez and Moll), but the possibility of Madrid finally appeared.” He went to the capital to make history with all the shirts he wore. He came at the halftime of Real Madrid and won the 1964 Euro Cup for the Spanish national team. with a strong Galician component. He, Luis Suárez, Marcelino, Reija… Two years later, he captained the Real Madrid team, which won the sixth European Cup after Alfredo Di Stéfano’s retirement, and again alongside Veloso. He continued to score, now at the highest level. Close to 200 in his entire career. His football didn’t stop spending wonderful afternoons at the Bernabéu as the eighties loomed on the horizon. He retired in 1976 and immediately joined the Madrid coaching staff and structure. He has held different positions at all levels, including as coach of Castilla and the first team at the birth of Quinta del Buitre. Although that season was culminated by Molowny, his responsibility is part of the first white UEFA. Although Amancio has not completely lost touch with A Coruña, he has been living in Madrid ever since he was recruited by the Chamartín team. It’s pretty common to see him on a getaway or various corporate visits every summer. Its fixture is in Sada. Family ties unite it with this town of As Mariñas. He was one of the personalities claimed to have been immortalized in the municipality’s famous street.

Like Luis Suárez, Chacho, and a handful of jewels, Amancio is another example of what Coruña youth academy has produced throughout history, one of the best. “El Brujo” was a classy player, but in his case he was more dribbling, sharp and goal scorer than the law dictated.. It’s been unprecedented in the city for decades, but he believes that football idea has survived in some of the players who have raised their heads at Riazor recently. “A Coruña has always had quality players, it’s undeniable. We can’t forget Fran.”