- Philippine footballer key to club’s ‘first golden era’ was named Asia’s greatest ever player by Fifa in 2007
- More than a century on from his debut hat-trick he remains Barcelona’s youngest player and scorer
When Lionel Messi scored the second of his hat-tricks against Osasuna on March 16, 2014, the 26-year-old became Barcelona's leading scorer.
The 369-goal mark he overtook had stood for decades but despite all the illustrious goalscorers who had played for the Blaugrana over the years " Mariano Martin, Cesar, Laszlo Kubala, Romario, Ronaldo, Rivaldo, Samuel Eto'o and Luis Suarez among them " the name of the previous record holder will have been unfamiliar to many.
Paulino Alcantara was the player in question and it was a record he had held for almost 90 years.
The club's statisticians had him down as scoring atotal of 142 goals in official matches and 227 goals in friendlies, but he may have scored even more " elsewhere on the club's official website it said that Alcantara "was the Club's top goalscorer with 395 goals in 399 games before he was finally overtaken by Leo Messi".
It was fitting that another diminutive forward who had broken through as a teenager would take Alcantara's record, whatever it might actually be. Alcantara was a star player in the early days of the club and shone from his debut against Catala SC on February 25, 1912, aged 15 years, four months and 18 days.
Alcantara scored a hat-trick that day, the first three goals in a 9-0 win. "Those were early days for the game, and there were only about a hundred people there to witness the incredible sight of this tiny child able to shoot the ball with such immense power," according to the club website.
Part-time soldier.
Part-time footballer.
FC Barcelona's first ever superstar, Paulino AlcAntara. pic.twitter.com/5k5As9w82Y" total Barca (@totalBarca) October 27, 2017
To this day he remains the club's youngest debutant and their youngest goalscorer. In that game Alcantara also set another record: it made him the first Asian player to play in Europe.
Born in 1896 to a Filipino mother and Spanish military officer father, Alcantara was raised in Iloilo in the Spanish-ruled Philippines around the same time that football was taking shape there.
"Football is thought to have been introduced to the Philippines in 1895 by British sailors, and then spread further by Filipino students who'd returned to the country after being exposed to it in Hong Kong," reported the Football Pink in a profile of Alcantara.
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IMBARCATA Campo de Tarrasa, Barcellona. E il 07/03/1915 e si disputa la finale del Campeonato de Cataluna. Ma E soprattutto un derby: a sfidare i BLAUGRANA, c'E l'Espanyol. Oggi sarebbe impensabile, ma non c'E partita: il Barca va in barca. Il confronto ha giA emesso un verdetto impietoso dopo 17 minuti appena: Tormo realizza la terza rete che segue la doppietta di LOpez. La sua si concretizzerA nella ripresa, per un 4-0 pesante come un macigno. Perche permette ai PERIQUITOS di superare i rivali nelle vittorie del trofeo: il parziale era in paritA, passano a condurre 6 a 5. Soppresso nel '40, il campionato catalano resta comunque appannaggio dei cule: 21 affermazioni, l'Espanyol si aggiudica l'ultima edizione (l'undicesima totale). Articolo completo su footballhistorysociety.com Photo by Frederic JuandO Alegret restored/colored & Article by Dario Romano Football History Administrator footballhistorysociety.com #rfef #barcelona #fcbarcelona #barca #fcbarca #blaugrana #azulgrana #campeonatodecataluna #paulinoalcantara
A post shared by Football History (@footballhistorysociety) on Oct 3, 2019 at 1:08am PDT
It was a time of great change. The country was amid revolution while the Spanish-American war would also be fought there, while across the world FC Barcelona was being founded. The Alcantaras would settle in the city where the club's founder Joan Gamper spotted Alcantara and signed up the diminutive forward from local side Galeno.
Alcantara shone briefly for Barcelona, winning a Copa del Rey and Championat de Catalunya double in 1913 then a Championat de Catalunya in 1916, before returning to the Philippines.
The player became a medical student while playing for Manila side Bohemian Sporting Club where he won back-to-back national championships in 1917 and 1918.
Lionel Messi celebrated passing Paulino Alcantara as FC Barcelona's all-time leading scorer in 2014 by sporting a kit from the legendary Philippine striker's era. pic.twitter.com/oYjBnRtBkl
" Jonathan White (@jmawhite) March 29, 2020
He was called up for the national team during this time, notably for the 1917 Far East Championships. The Philippines would finish second at the tournament but they thrashed hosts Japan 15-2 along the way. They lost the final to China after the match was abandoned because of a mass brawl.
While Alcantara had thrived back in his homeland " even representing them internationally at table tennis " his former team had struggled. Barcelona won no silverware during Alcantara's time in the Philippines but that was set to change dramatically upon his return, which heralded the beginning of the club's first golden era alongside other legendary players such as Josep Samitier, Ricardo Zamora, Emilio Sagi and Vicente Piera.
He came back in 1918, having contracted malaria and convinced his parents he should return to Spain by refusing treatment unless they allowed him to leave, and carried on where he left off, notably scoring a goal against Real Sociedad on April 13, 1919, that would become the stuff of legend.
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"Alcantara scored what has gone down in history as the 'police goal'. A powerful shot from the Filipino was heading straight for the goal when a stray policeman somehow got in the way of the ball," the club said. Both ball and policeman ended up in the back of the net.
"An extraordinarily skinny looking player on the outside was built like a train within, and his ability to strike the ball hard astounded everyone that ever saw him play," the club said. "Looking so appealing with his white handkerchief always hanging out of his shorts, he became the first major media figure in FC Barcelona history."
If that was not evidence of a powerful shot then his goal against France in 1922 " when he was making one of his six international appearances for Spain in which he scored six goals " put his prowess beyond doubt.
#PaulinoAlcantara scored a #hattrick for #FCBarcelona on his debut at the age of 15 (1912). #Barca pic.twitter.com/70hgNgrAJT @anituarco
["His ability to hit the most powerful of shots crossed frontiers on the 30 April 1922 when, in a game between Spain and France, he hit a shot so hard that it ripped right through the net," FC Barcelona's official profile of Alcantara recounts. "For many years after, children from Barcelona would recall that moment and would wish to do the same as the man from the Philippines." This earned him the nickname "El Romperedes" or "Trencaxarxes" (the net breaker).
His goalscoring exploits are made all the more remarkable by the fact that he was played in central defence " something not even Messi has done yet " by English coach (and Alcantara's former teammate) Jack Greenwell at the start of his second spell before the club's members demanded he be played as a forward.
Off the pitch he continued his studies to become a doctor. He took that so seriously that he turned down the chance to play for Spain at the 1920 Olympics in Antwerp so he could finish his medical exams " Spain finished runners-up in his absence. He would enter the profession full time when he hung up his boots in July 1927, aged 31.
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Alcantara retired amid a glowing tribute from fans at the club's Les Corts 30,000 capacity ground (where they had moved during the Alcantara-inspired golden era) in a testimonial game between Barcelona and Spain.
He finished having won 17 major titles over his two spells " five Spanish championships, 10 Catalan championships and two Copa Del Rey wins, according to the club " and representing Spain, Catalonia and the Philippines internationally.
However, he was not done with either football or Barcelona.
Leo Messi equals Paulino AlcAntara as the highest goalscorer in FC Barcelona history with 369 goals: pic.twitter.com/wBB3F7ArD5
" FC Barcelona (from ) (@FCBarcelona) March 16, 2014
](https://twitter.com/anituarco?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw?utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchangeSCMP&utm_source=LINEtodayHK)
[Alcantara was a board member at the club from 1931 to 1934 and also managed the Spanish national team for three games in 1951 " a stint in which they went undefeated.
In between, after exile in France and Andorra, he would controversially fight for Franco's army in the Spanish Civil War.
He would die aged 67 in Barcelona in 1964 following a successful second career as a doctor and as one of the first footballers to pen an autobiography.
When Paulino AlcAntara was the next big thing in Spanish football, his parents moved him to the Philippines to study medicine.
When Barca failed to win without Paulino, he contracted malaria and refused to take medication until he was allowed to return. https://t.co/P0kx1SPawF pic.twitter.com/5NjOfBUIOO" Breaking The Lines (@BTLvid) May 15, 2019
](https://twitter.com/anituarco?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw?utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchangeSCMP&utm_source=LINEtodayHK)
[Football has not forgotten him.
He is immortalised in a statue outside the Philippine Football Federation and the Copa Paulino Alcantara, the country's premier cup competition.
He was also inducted into the Football Ramble's Dean Windass Hall of Fame in 2011. Messi posed wearing an Alcantara-era Barcelona kit after passing his record.
](https://twitter.com/anituarco?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw?utm_medium=partner&utm_campaign=contentexchangeSCMP&utm_source=LINEtodayHK)
[Alcantara was named by Fifa as the greatest Asian player of all time in 2007. Fifa.com marked the centenary of his debut in 2012 when they called him a "pioneering figure" and said he was responsible for "the club's first truly golden era".
"No Asian player had ever represented a European club before he moved to Spain, and few since have come close to matching his extraordinary achievements," they wrote.
That remains true.
Copyright (c) 2020. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.
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