February 25, 1912. The day that Paulino Alcántara made his senior team debut, one of the most impressive ever recorded in soccer history.
The 1911-12 regional Catalan championship, a 6-team competition, was at the halfway stage and the Spanish-Filipino striker was only 15 years and 140 days old. Bottom of the table Català Sporting Club entered the “Campo de la calle Indústria” facing the Catalunya reigning champions, a squad made of: Enrique Peris, José Irízar, Enrique Lorca, German Walter Rositzky, the Englishmen Billy Lambe, Summer and Wilson, José Berdié, Alfred Massana, Domènec Espelta and the youngster Alcántara.
Discovered by Joan Gamper, founder of the Foot-Ball Club Barcelona just 13 years prior to his 1912 debut, Alcántara had started playing soccer with local club Galeno before moving to the ‘’blaugrana’’ youth team in 1910, aged 14. There was no thing such a…soccer coach or manager back then and it was actually either the captain or the directors responsible for the squad selection! But, the 15 year-old centre forward got his big break setting unprecedented and long-lasting records for the club, on that day.
Debut of records
Soccer, a century ago, bore little resemblance to the tactically organised systems of today. During that time most teams favoured a five-man forward line of attackers with just two defenders protecting their goal! So did Barcelona. Català Sport Club may have been the weakest team of the league, but in front of approximately 100 fans young Paulino made a huge impact on the match by scoring the first three goals: a hat-trick in the first half! Alcántara, a child prodigy, became the youngest player ever to play, score and record a hat-trick for Barcelona: three records that have been untouchable ever since.
At the end Barcelona won more than comfortably with a 9–0 score and Alcántara netted one third of them. No other soccer player had ever scored a hat-trick at an age younger than 15 years and 140 days by 1912 in any competition or division throughout the world. And no one ever did after, and until 1996 when Pontikas’ hat-trick at 14 years and 198 days in his team’s 4-3 defeat broke Alcántara’s haunted world record which lasted for 84 years!
Destined to make history
Paulino Alcantara Riestra was born in Philippines, to a Spanish military officer and a ”mestiza” mother (Flilipino-Spanish), on 7 October 1896. It was the year that the Philippines Revolution broke against Spanish Crown. At the age of three, his family moved to Barcelona, the same year that Barcelona was formed by Joan Gamper! In 1912, the year of his debut, Barcelona was not even near the club of its current magnitude, finishing third at the end of the season behind Espanyol and Espana. There was no La Liga until 1929, and the ‘’blaugrana’’ was more of a strong local club competing with Espanyol and the X Sporting Club for the regional title having just one national trophy on its cabinet: the 1910 Copa del Rey.
However, things would start changing from the 1911-12 season onwards. Barcelona beat Sociedad Gimnástica in the 1912 Copa del Rey final, a victory they would repeat in 1913 topped up with the regional Catalan championship. Paulino Alcántara was becoming an integral part of the team that now had its first manager in charge, player-coach Billy Lambe, followed by Miles Barron and Jack Alderson.
Return to Philippines and back to Barcelona
In 1916, Alcántara’s parents returned to the Philippines along with their 20-year old son and his 6 siblings. The just 1.70-metres standing tall inside left had already started his studies in medicine in Barcelona and he would continue in Manila. He also decided to keep up with soccer joining champions Bohemian. Despite the fact that soccer was not popular in Philippines back in 1916, young Paulino left his mark. Alongside talented teenager Virgilio Lobregat, he led Bohemian Sporting Club to the 1917 and 1918 titles. They both represented Philippines at the 1917 Far Eastern Championship Games in Tokyo contributing to their national team’s biggest ever victory defeating Japan by 15-2! Paulino scored 2 in that game, but he failed to help Philippines win the gold medal losing to Tong Fuk Cheung’s China by 3-0 in the final match.
From 1912 until his 1916 departure from Catalunya, Paulino, nicknamed ”El Rompe Redes” (aka the netbuster) had scored 134 goals in 126 games for Barcelona in the Catalan regional championship, friendlies and other cup games. His 4-year absence was felt at the ”Campo de la calle Indústria”, prompting the club’s directors to seek for his return sending a telegram to his parents. He was convinced to leave Manila after scoring 24 goals in 23 league games for Bohemian Sporting Club. On April 28, 1918, after a two-month boat trip from Philippines, Alcántara arrived back in Barcelona, where he was warmly received and signed for the club.
His former teammate Jack Greenwell was now the manager at the club and he tried to convert Alcántara to a central defender, an attempt that would not work. As a result the “Els Socis,” a group of club members demanded that Alcántara be switched back to his normal position, which saw him return to the forward line. That was it. He was back on form leading Barcelona from one success to another: four regional Catalan titles in a row and two Copa del Reys from 1918 until 1922. Four more straight Catalan championships followed (1924-1927) and two Spanish Cups, in 1925 and 1926.
After easily combining his doctor’s education and soccer since the mid 1910s and determined to become a doctor, the ‘’original Messi’’ hung up his boots on July 3, 1927, after having helped Barça win 10 Catalunya championship titles in total. On that day Barcelona faced Spain in a testimonial match in his honour.
He finished his career his 407 club goals in 405 games and remained Barcelona’s all-time top scorer for 87 years, until 2014, when Lionel Messi broke the long-standing record. The Filipino legend scored a total of 369, 142 goals in official matches and 227 goals in friendlies with a ratio slightly higher than 1:1. And also bagging 10 in 5 games for the Spanish national team. Apart from the Far Eastern Games (a competition that Lee Wai Tong had also played at) the “netbuster” did not feature in other big international tournaments. However, he had the chance to represent Spain in the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp after being selected together with legendary goalkeeper Ricardo Zamora from Barcelona. Surprisingly, he turned the chance down as he was preparing for his University exams!
Alcántara was one of the first soccer players to write his memoirs, which he started doing in 1924 while still playing. After his retirement he served as a club director for Barcelona between 1931 and 1934.
1936: Alcántara is going to war!
On 4 August 1936, Paulino Alcántara as a member of the Falange Española (the variant of Spanish Fascism) fled to Andorra and France after Franco’s coup failed to take Barcelona on 18 July 1936. In 1936 Alcántara participated in military operations of the nationalist troops of Francisco Franco and during the Spanish Civil War, Alcántara was a medical Lieutenant of the first battalion of the Brigade Legionary Black Arrows, a volunteer corps directed directly by…Benito Mussolini! He served on the fronts of Guadalajara, Aragon and Catalunya and entered Barcelona victoriously on 26 January 1939. After the Spanish Civil War, Dr. Paulino Alcántara lived in Barcelona, passing away on February 13, 1964, aged 67. He was buried in the Les Corts cemetery, next to Camp Nou. In 2007 FIFA named Alcántara as the greatest Asian player of all time.
Fun…facts
*”El Rompe Redes” was exactly the same height as the man who broke his Barcelona all-time scoring record, Lionel Messi!
*Swiss Joan Gamper who had already founded other clubs in his home town, Zürich, initially wanted join a group that ended up creating Català in 1899, but he was rejected for being a foreigner. Since then the two clubs with the exact founding year and three weeks apart, developed a rivalry, at least on paper, as Català could not match Barcelona’s performances.
*Paulino was the first player to ever score at Camp de Les Corts, Barcelona’s new stadium on May 20, 1922 in the inaugural match against Scottish club St. Mirren. His goal was the only of that historic match.
*Next month it will be 112 years since his debut in the regional Catalan championship, the main competition he played during his career . The league started in 1901, but it was abolished in 1940 by Franco’s regime. And Paulino had fought with the.. Spanish nationalist forces in the 1930s!
*The term ‘netbuster’ is given to many players for their goal-scoring prowess. But not just that. It is used to refer to goals that take your breath away!
*Dr. Paulino Alcántara is the only player in the history of Barcelona to have two testimonial matches in his honour. The first was a farewell game on 20 April 1916 before departing for Manila and the second on 3 July 1927 when he decide to retire to become a doctor.
*Campo de la calle Indústria opened on March 14, 1909, with a match against…Catalá! It was Barcelona’s first owned ground in their then 10-year-old history and the only one with 1,500-capacity grandstands at the time. Undoubtedly, Campo de la calle Indústria was considered the best in town during the 1910s.
*The well-trimmed grass football fields we know today did not exist for much of soccer’s history and this applies for this particular pre-war era with soccer being played on hard surfaces: on a dirt or gravel field. Possible weather changes would deteriorate the conditions and increase the risk of injuries. But, even post-war until the 1980s and even the 1990s many clubs (outside the USA) would use pitches on a dirt in national divisions!
*Soccer was not the only sport the ”netbuster” was good at, as he played for the Philippines table tennis team at the 1917 Far Eastern Games!
*Joan Gamper, Barcelona president since 1908, and was an ex-player at the club. Interestingly, Gamper still holds a club record for netting nine goals in 3 different matches!
*Regional…leagues. Maybe today worldwide they exist as lower leagues but pre-war they served as the top leagues of each region without the existence of a formed national league. Examples? La Liga was launched in 1929, Linafoot of Zaire in 1958, Iranian national League in 1991, Campeonato Brasileiro in 1959, etc.
