Bend it Like Paulino . . . and Friends
/Eight years short of its centennial, this 2022 edition of the FIFA Men’s World Cup is unique because it is being played for the first time in the desert setting of the Middle East. That has brought with it new problems, foremost being that the tournament could not be played in the traditional summer months of July and August due to Qatar’s climate without bringing undue health hazards for the players and fans.
Of course, the promise of airconditioned stadia when the Qataris sought the bid, turned out to be pure come-on fiction. The November-December window is the latest in the calendar year it has been played and that move has wreaked havoc on the professional clubs’ and TV networks’ broadcasting calendars.
While the Philippines has never qualified for this pinnacle tournament, its football/soccer aficionados join the rest of the world in following the beautiful and sometimes deadly game’s glories of victory and agonies of defeat.
(For the uninitiated, soccer and football are differing terms for the same thing. The rest of the world knows the sport as football, but it is only in the USA that it is called soccer to differentiate it from the vastly more brutal “American football” version.)
Such is the passion football arouses in its fans that in 1969, El Salvador and Honduras went to war over a football match (hostilities lasted about 100 hours) and last month, 135 people died and more than 500 injured in a post-game riot and stampede in Malang, Indonesia, following—you guessed it—a football match gone south. That made it probably the deadliest soccer match in history.
Long before a mestiza high-school girl from San Lorenzo Village in Makati named Isabel Arrastia Preysler moved to Madrid, Spain, in the early 1960s and eventually became the toast of the capital’s café society, there was a little-known budding football player, also of mixed Hispano-Filipino heritage, born to less privileged and sosyal circles than Isabel’s, who rose to heights of recognition and respect in Spanish and Catalan football circles some 60 years before Isabel.
That futbolista was Paulino Riestra Alcántara, who held his own and whose story still reverberates in Spanish sports pages and Filipino football circles some ninety years later.
Alcántara had dark, almost Moorish looks.
Alcántara, in a football playing card
Paulino Alcántara was born in Concepcion, Iloilo, supposedly in 1896. Both of Paulino’s parents’ families were from Manila and Luzon, but because his father, Eduardo Alcántara y Garchitorena, was a Spanish cavalry officer assigned to Iloilo at the time, it is incorrectly thought that Paulino had deep Ilonggo roots. Not so. Paulino’s mother, Victoriana Riestra, was, in fact, originally from Cagayan in northern Luzon.
In any case, the Alcántaras did not stay too long in Iloilo for by 1898, the Spaniards had lost the Philippines to the USA, the new Pacific power. Thus, Eduardo Alcántara’s cavalry commission was terminated, and although they still had various properties in Luzon at the time, the Alcántaras decided to move to Spain in 1905 when young Paulino was only nine years old.
Conflicting Dates
There are conflicting dates in Paulino’s life, however, based on the official US consular document below, a signed, testamentary document which is filled with unintended inconsistencies, e.g., that “’Concepcion’ is in Luzon.” Dates might or might not have been correct as they needed only to match the Spanish residency papers Paulino had to present to re-enter the Philippines. The birth year of “1897,” however, clearly contradicts his otherwise commonly accepted birth year of “1896.”
US Consulate form filed by Paulino Alcantara and signed by the American Vice Consul in Barcelona at the time, Harris Cookingham.
Their small family unit of three—Paulino was an only child—settled in Barcelona. His childhood was mostly uneventful, except that young Paulino exhibited an early talent for football. This was recognized early by the city’s new football club, FC Barcelona (for Futbol Club Barcelona or “Barca” as it is fondly and locally called) and FCB quickly recruited the young Paulino, only 14 at the time, into its youth feeder team.
When Paulino was promoted to the adult ranks the following year, he made his mark on FCB history on February 25, 1912 playing as a forward. Paulino scored the first three goals of that game, the first being a “hat trick” or “header”—and all this at a tender age of fifteen, four months. That game established and sealed the young Fil-Hispano athlete’s reputation as a football “great”— even before he reached twenty.
Return to the Commonwealth of the Philippines
Four years later, in 1916, while the rest of Europe was engaged in the Great War, family matters forced Paulino to take a break from his Spanish football career. At nineteen, he accompanied his parents back to the Philippines. The Alcántaras had to attend to the disposition of their familial land assets in the Philippines, now under American rule, and which required their actual, physical presence back in Manila.(The Alcántaras are related to the Garchitorenas and Rochas of Manila today.Contemporary film producer E.A. (Eduardo) Rocha fondly recalls Paulino as a grand-uncle.)
An adult Paulino with his parents, Eduardo and Victoriana, in what looks like travel/passport photos preparatory to returning to an American Philippines in 1916.
During his two-year return to the Philippines, Paulino kept busy with his own pursuits and timetable.
He joined Los Bohemios, the football team of the Bohemian Sporting Club, and helped them win the Philippine national title in 1917 and 1918. He also got started with his medical studies—his long-term ambition—at La Universidad de Santo Tomas, the Pontifical university.
In 1917, the young transplant was selected for the Philippine Commonwealth National Team to play at the Far Eastern Championship Games of 1917 in Tokyo, Japan. With Paulino’s presence and prowess, the young Filipino team defeated the host country 15-2, the biggest win ever for a Philippine national team in international football and unmatched to this day. (The Far Eastern Games was the forerunner of what would become the Asian Games after World War II.)
Paulino was sorely missed by his old club in Barcelona, whose members were in a funk in his absence and did not have the winning style when he was with them. FCB cabled its former star player and entreated him with great exhortations to return to Spain as soon as possible. But Paulino put them off, being the good son that he was, and stayed with his parents in the Philippines until they decided where to ultimately settle.
Malaria in Manila
In late 1917, however, Paulino contracted malaria and was itching to return to Spain. The would-be doctor tried a ruse to “blackmail” his parents in letting him return. He threatened not to take the quinine medication for malaria if they did not give their blessings for Paulino to return to Spain ahead of them. Quickly, his parents relented and that was how Paulino, with a clear conscience, went back ahead of his parents to Spain.
After three years’ absence, Paulino returned to Spain on his own in 1919 to great fanfare. Hundreds of his football fans greeting his ship when it docked in Barcelona. Back in the Spanish-Catalan saddle, Paulino lost no time in proving he was the star player his re-adopted city and team missed.
On April 30, 1922, Paulino solidified his legend in a match against Bordeaux, France, wherein his strike was so forceful that the ball reportedly ripped a hole in the goal net. (It might have been an old net, too.) Thus, Paulino earned himself the nickname “El Rompe Redes” or in Catalan “Trencaxarxes” (The Net-Buster in either case).
In his career as a Barca player, Paulino racked up five Copa del Rey (the national Spanish league) titles, and ten Campionat de Catalunya (championships for Catalonia) cups. In his (interrupted) twelve years (1912-1927) playing for Barca, Paulino’s record of 369 career goals in 357 games, averaging 1.04 goals per game—in both friendlies and official appearances for FCB—stood for many decades.
A few years before he retired from professional football, Alcántara wrote his first memoir in 1924. Its proceeds helped Paulino finish medical school and start a family. In July 1927, at age 30, Alcántara retired from the sporting life to practice medicine. He also married Blanca Lopez, a local Barcelona girl, and had two sons.
Alcántara in later years with his wife and sons.
Unfortunately, Paulino never got to play for the Olympics or the World Cup. Paulino had a chance to play at the 1920 Olympic Games in Antwerp but passed up the opportunity in order to concentrate on his medical exam finals. Sure enough, the Spanish team only won the silver medal. The FIFA World Cup, as we know it today, did not begin until 1930, so way past Paulino’s professional football career days.
Paulino’s Fascist Political Life
Along with his medical practice, Alcántara also led a very active political career. He belonged to Francisco Franco’s Falangist/Carlist party, the fascist or Nationalist party which backed the restoration of the monarchy.
Paulino was a dyed-in-the-wool Falangist and during the Spanish Civil war he even rose to Lieutenant of the Brigade Legionary Black Arrows (Frecce Nere), a volunteer corps reporting directly to Franco’s ally, Il Duce Benito Mussolini. Oddly, Paulino’s beloved Barcelona was actually an opposition Republican bastion.
Early in the Civil War, before the Falangists had consolidated their positions and their attempted coup in Barcelona in July 1936 failed, Paulino and his Black Arrows brigade had to escape to France and Andorra over the Pyrenees to avoid being massacred by Republicans. So intense were passions on opposing sides of the Civil War that not even Paulino’s reputation as a legendary football star, native son, and medical doctor, could shield him from the intensity of the strife.
After Civil War and After Football
After the brutal Civil War and Franco’s forces prevailed, Paulino returned to a normal life with his family and medical practice. But in 1951, he had another fling with football when, at 55, he was called upon to select the line-up for the Spanish national team and coach them in three inter-European games—winning one match and tying the other two.
Paulino died quietly in 1964 at age 68. He is buried with his wife in a most unassuming crypt at Barcelona’s Cementiri de los Corts, most surprising for a man revered as a legend.
The crypt of Alcántara and his wife at Barcelona’s Cementiri de los Corts.
In 2014, Catalan authors David Valero Carreras and Angel Iturriaga Barco published the ultimate Alcántara biography, Alcántara! (unfortunately, only in Catalan). It was announced then that Spanish, English (and supposedly, even a Pilipino) editions would follow but have yet to materialize.
Alcántara’s Record Stood for 87 Years
For nearly ninety years, Alcántara’s record 369 career goals in 357 games stood unchallenged. It wasn’t until March 2014 that other wunderkid from Argentina, Lionel Messi, smashed El Rompe Redes’ record with 371 goals over 452 games, also with the same FC Barcelona—the fourth most valuable soccer franchise in the world—from 2003-2014.
Lionel Messi of Argentina, wearing Alcántara’s historic 80-year old jersey. I imagine the shirt was already washed.
So, was Alcántara a “true” Filipino or just “Filipino” by accident of birth? That is probably the elephant in the-room. For all intents and purposes, I’d say Paulino was really Spanish/Catalan at heart. He just happened to have been born in the Philippines at the tail-end of Spanish rule; and had his parents had no lands to return to, Paulino would probably never have returned to Manila in that short sojourn of 1916-1918.
Also, had there been no medical courses offered at the University of Santo Tomas in 1916, the Pontifical university run by a Spanish order, Paulino might not have been as eager to accompany his parents for an indefinite stay halfway around the world. Paulino’s two-year sojourn in Manila did not set him back greatly in his long-term timetable of becoming a physician. Paulino could always pick up those studies anytime he returned to Spain, which he did.
Finally, Paulino, in later years would not have been so heavily invested in politics, even going so far as becoming an active and militant member of the Falangist party had his allegiances been to the former colony of the Philippines rather than to a troubled Spain. But the money in football is with the European clubs, and understandably, Paulino made hay where the sun shone for him.
Gone But Not Forgotten
In 2007, FIFA conferred on Alcántara the title and honor of the Greatest Asian Football Player of All Time. In 2018, the Philippine Football League established the Copa Paulino Alcántara tournament in his honor; and last year he was given a place of honor in the Philippine Sports Hall of Fame.
And ‘Friends’
Three other “Filipinos” or part-Filipinos associated with European football who come to mind at this time. Unlike Paulino who was of average height (5’8”), the following three mentioned here were/are quite tall, hence all goalkeepers.
A contemporary of Paulino was Eduardo Teus, also born in late 1896, but to a more prominent Manila family than Paulino’s.
One of the few extant photographs of Eduardo Teus.
Teus was from the San Miguel de Manila area. Today, there still stands the Teus mansion, one of the three “guesthouses” attached to the Malacañang Palace compound. The Teus mansion is probably the most austere of the three neighboring buildings Imelda Marcos “attached” to Malacañang in her heyday (the late 1970s). Teus family members living in Manila at the time, however, were properly compensated when the acquisitive first lady eyed their home, as she did with the next-door Goldenberg mansion. The Laperal mansion across the Pasig River, however, Imelda simply “acquired” in true authoritarian style, by having the Presidential Guard usher the legal Laperal resident out into the street in the middle of the night.
Like Paulino, Teus moved to Spain at a very young age. Not much else is known about Teus’ professional career other than he played for Barca’s archrival, Real Madrid. When his football days were over, Teus became a sports journalist. Like Paulino, he was called upon by Franco to manage the Spanish national team in 1941-42. Teus died of a stroke while watching a football game in Bilbao in October 1958.
Two contemporary footballers of Filipino descent are playing for the pro clubs in Europe.
Neal Etheridge, of an English father and a Filipina mother, manages to split his time as a goalie between Club assignments in Europe and the Philippine National Football Team, the Azkals.
Neal Etheridge
There is also Alphonse Areola, son of Filipino immigrants to France. Four years ago, at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Areola was the back-up goalie of Les Bleus. The French won that tournament, hence, as of this writing, Areola is the only footballer of Filipino descent with a true World Cup victory and medal to his name.
There is also Alphonse Areola, son of Filipino immigrants to France. Four years ago, at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, Areola was the back-up goalie of Les Bleus. The French won that tournament, hence, as of this writing, Areola is the only footballer of Filipino descent with a true World Cup victory and medal to his name.
Areola plays full-time for English team West Ham United and he was just named to the 2022 French Les Blues squad, thereby also making Areola the only professional football player of Filipino descent to play in two consecutive World Cups.
I’m sure Paulino would have greatly approved. Allez Les Bleus—do Paulino proud in Qatar!
SOURCES:
Paquito de la Cruz and his encyclopedic knowledge of Fil-Hispano people and events
That time two countries went to war over soccer - We Are The Mighty
Scores killed in Indonesia football stadium crush - BBC News - YouTube
Alcántara Alcántara, the first hero - YouTube (w/ clips from his granddaughter)
(1) Book on legendary Filipino footballer launched - YouTube
Eduardo Teus - Eduardo Teus - Wikipedia
Visiting his great-great-grandfather’s house – Manila Bulletin (mb.com.ph)
Etheridge: Dooley wants veteran goalie Etheridge to skipper Azkals – Pinoyfootball
Areola: MY I.D. CARD - EP12 - ALPHONSE AREOLA - YouTube
Myles A. Garcia is a Correspondent and regular contributor to www.positivelyfilipino.com. He has written three books:
· Secrets of the Olympic Ceremonies (latest edition, 2021);
· Thirty Years Later . . . Catching Up with the Marcos-Era Crimes (© 2016); and
· Of Adobo, Apple Pie, and Schnitzel With Noodles (© 2018)—all available in paperback from amazon.com (Australia, USA, Canada, UK and Europe).
Myles is also a member of the International Society of Olympic Historians, contributing to the ISOH Journal, and pursuing dramatic writing lately. For any enquiries: razor323@gmail.com
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