Last update 1 August, 2024 por Alberto Llopis
The name of Ignacio Eizaguirre es uno de esos nombres que salen en la lista de los mejores porteros de la historia del Valencia CF. Today Colgados for football, We are traveling back in time, to return to other times. To those times when goalkeepers did not wear gloves and the balls were made of hard leather, of which more than one would break his leg kicking it. We move to the early-mid 20th century, when soccer players were real gentlemen.
Ignacio Eizaguirre and his father morcillas
And we did not want to ignore the curious story of this goalkeeper, Ignacio Eizaguirre, born in San Sebastián, el 7 de noviembre de 1920. Son of goalkeeper Agustín Eizaguirre, con 16 years signed by Real Sociedad, pero la Civil war made all competitions stop and not resume until the season 1939-40, which was when he debuted with Real Sociedad in the Second Division.
He signed for Valencia and was there since 1941 hasta 1950. There the first curiosity occurred, debuted conceding five goals, which caused him to lose ownership in favor of the other goalkeeper who at that time had Valencia, Pío.
But the curious thing would come in the way in which Eizaguirre was going to regain ownership. Eizaguirre's father had a butcher shop and visited his son in the city of Turia. On one of your visit, brought his son a basket full of products from his butcher shop.
Eizaguirre shared it with his colleagues. Uno de ellos, precisely his rival in the goal was eating and caught a glut. This made the starting goalkeeper Pío unable to play due to an indisposition due to indignation..
The blood sausages of Eizaguirre's father had knocked down the main goalkeeper and he would return his son's position, that I would later play during 8 years at Valencia and would become one of the most important goalkeepers in the history of the Valencian entity. Coincidence or not, nunca lo sabremos.
Llegó a jugar en el Mundial de Brasil 1950
Jugó dos partidos en el Brazil World Cup 1950 and after the tournament, returned to the Royal Society, there Eizaguirre would leave another pearl for the anecdotes section. In one of the games he played in the World Cup, conceded a goal with a rare dribble of the ball. Since then he decided that before each game he would take some sandbags from the beach and throw them over the small area of his goal., then I would level it with a rake and water the ground, thus avoiding unexpected bounces of the ball.
Also known for his modern outfits for the time, the last and surprising anecdote where there are, it was when training Osasuna, before the problems that his team was having in the goal, without putting on colorao decided to put himself under the sticks, but he was unlucky and received the same goals as his goalkeepers.
Later in a friendly charity that Valencia made him, was marked with 55 years a monumental little dove, to remind Valencian fans, that he was one of the best goalkeepers in the history of the club.
Finally, el 1 de septiembre de 2013, Eizaguirre falleció en San Sebastián a los 93 años dejando tras de si un legado y una larga historia en las porterías del fútbol español.