Guillermo Gorostiza

Guillermo Gorostiza Paredes (Santurce, Vizcaya, February 15, 1909-Bilbao, August 23, 1966) was a Spanish footballer, and historical player for the Athletic Club and Valencia Football Club of the First Division of Spain, entities to which it owes its greatest successes and recognitions. Started at the Arenas Club in Guecho as a left winger, he went on to form the "first historical forward" & # 34; of the Bilbao team, and later of the one known as "electric forward" of the Valencian team.

He is Athletic Club's fourth all-time scorer with 196 goals in 256 games, while in the First Division he scored 178 goals, placing him as one of the top all-time scorers in the championship, and of which he became the first in the moment of his retirement, surpassing the previous record of Santiago Urtizberea first, and Agustín Sauto Bata later. This remained in force until it was surpassed by Mundo Suárez in 1949.

Biography

Gorostiza was born in 1909 in Santurce, Vizcaya, into a fairly wealthy family, since his father was a doctor by profession. He completed his first studies in his hometown and was then sent by his parents to a boarding school in Miranda de Ebro to study high school. Mischievous and a bad student, more interested in football than in books, he abandoned his studies and went to work in a naval factory in Sestao, where he learned the trade of turner.

His first football club was Chávarri de Sestao, where he already met the man who would be his future teammate at Athletic, the goalkeeper Gregorio Blasco. From there he went to Zugazarte de Guecho, where he began to play in the left wing position. The Arenas Club signed him from Zugazarte for 30 pesos in silver and Gorostiza played 10 games with the ARENA team. Gorostiza, however, faced with the Arenas board, declared rebellion, abandoned Vizcaya and Arenas and escaped to Argentina, residing for some time in the house of a relative of his in Buenos Aires.

He returned to Spain to complete his military service, being assigned as a sailor to Ferrol, where his qualities as a footballer did not go unnoticed. He joined the Racing Club of Ferrol with whom he played during the time his "military" lasted. With Racing he was champion of Galicia without knowing defeat and debuted in the national category, becoming a nationally known player after Racing managed to defeat C. D. Alavés in the 1928-29 Cup and he scored the second goal. Then Racing fell to Athletic Club in the round of 16, Gorostiza scoring in the first leg, played at the Inferniño field in Ferrol. In the Ferrol team he coincided with Gerardo Bilbao, with whom he would also play at Athletic Club.

Recommended by the player Ramón Lafuente, who had been his teammate at the Miranda boarding school, Gorostiza was signed in 1929 by Athletic Club. The signing of Gorostiza by Athletic was the cause of a conflict with the Santurzano's former club, Arenas, which owned his legal rights and did not want to give them up to its great local rival. The matter was settled with Athletic's payment of 20,000 pesetas and a friendly match.

In the Bilbao team he played from the 1929-30 season and was part of what was known as "first historical forward" of Athletic Club, along with Lafuente, Iraragorri, Bata, Chirri II and Unamuno. With this club she won the Spanish League on four occasions and the Cup Championship on four other occasions. She also won the Pichichi Trophy twice, scoring 19 goals in the 1929-30 season and 12 in the 1931-32 season, the latter with a curious. In reality, her teammate Bata was the top scorer with thirteen goals and, even, Gorostiza only scored nine goals. This is how they appear in the League and Athletic Club databases, but it is the left winger who appears as the winner of the trophy with twelve goals.

The Spanish Civil War paralyzed official football competitions between 1936 and 1939. Gorostiza was at the beginning of the war in Vizcaya, which is in the republican zone. In 1937 he joined the Euzkadi team, a provincial team created by the Basque Government in order to raise funds in Europe for Basque refugees and carry out propaganda work in favor of the Basque Government and the Republic. Gorostiza coincided with many of the best Basque footballers of the time such as Luis Regueiro, Isidro Lángara or his Athletic Club teammates, José Iraragorri and Gregorio Blasco among others. Euzkadi made a brilliant tour of Europe playing friendly matches until Bilbao fell into Franco's hands. Then Gorostiza deserted from the team and, without saying anything to his teammates, he returned to Spain, to the national zone, where he was received with open arms by the rebel authorities. Gorostiza joined the Carlist requeté and fought with the national side, which used him for propaganda purposes until the end of the war. Only one other player from the Euzkadi national team, Roberto Echevarría, followed in Gorostiza's footsteps.

After the war, he continued playing for Athletic Club, but in the 1940-41 season he was transferred to Valencia C.F.. Despite already being a 31-year-old veteran, he continued to perform for Valencia for six seasons at a very high level. With this team he won two Leagues (1942 and 1944) and a Cup Championship (1941). At Valencia CF he was one of the members of the famous "electric forward", along with Epi, Amadeo, Mundo and Asensi. He was the player who scored Valencia CF's 500th goal in the Spanish First Division. In 1946 he left the Valencian club. The Mestalla Stadium was the scene of a match in tribute to his great sporting career. In total he played 256 games in the First Division, scoring 178 goals.

However, despite already being 37 years old, Gorostiza did not resign himself to hanging up his boots and decided to continue his career as a footballer in the Spanish Second Division playing in the ranks of the Barakaldo Football Club, where he was maximum goal scorer. The following year he played for a modest Asturian club, Real Juvencia de Trubia. He was also coach of Barakaldo for more than a dozen games. Finally, in 1948, he went to Club Deportivo Logroñés in the Spanish Third Division, where he combined roles as player and coach. In 1951 he received a tribute at the San Mamés stadium for his sporting career.

He was a man who had led an irregular and bohemian life since his youth, which led to alcoholism in the last years of his career as a footballer. There are stories about him that he would disappear for days without a trace, only to appear just before games or that he even played a match with Valencia CF while intoxicated. He did not know how to manage the money he had earned in his career, so he was forced to extend his career beyond 40 years of age. In the last years of his life he suffered a lung condition that led to his premature death. Shortly before he died, he appeared in the documentary Juguetes rotos directed by Manuel Summers, in which he interviewed characters who had been very popular in other times, but who had been forgotten with the passage of time and who were experiencing situations difficult.

He died in 1966, at the age of 57, in the Santa Marina Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Bilbao, an asylum run by nuns, where his wife and two children had abandoned him due to his problems with alcohol. It is said that one of the few possessions they found for him, which he did not want to part with despite his financial problems, was a silver cigarette case given by the Valencian president Luis Casanova with this inscription."To the best left winger of the world of all time".

National team

Between 1930 and 1941 he was international with the Spanish national soccer team on 19 occasions, scoring 2 goals and being one of the most outstanding players of the Spanish team. His debut as a player for the Spanish team was on June 14, 1930 in the Czechoslovakia 2-0 Spain match.

He was a member of the Spanish team during the 1934 Soccer World Cup, in which he played two games against Brazil and Italy.

Statistics

Clubs

Updated data to final race.

In the 1927-28 season, before joining the ranks of Racing de Ferrol, he was sent to Argentina by his father to make a future for himself, a stage that turned out to be counterproductive and he returned to Spain to perform military service bound for Ferrol, reason why he ended up at the racinguista club.

Club	Season	Div.	League (1)		Cups (2)		Regional (3)		Total (4)		Media Shotgun
			Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles
Arenas de Guecho	1927-28	1.a C.	Non-existent		4	4	3	1	7	5	0.71
Racing of Ferrol	1928-29		-	-	4	3	10	6	14	9	0.64
Athletic Club	1929-30	1. a	18	19	10	9	8	4	36	32	0.89
	1930-31		18	15	4	3	8	7	30	25	0.83
	1931-32		15	9	7	10	7	6	29	25	0.86
	1932-33		17	13	9	7	6	3	32	23	0.72
	1933-34		15	16	6	2	8	4	29	22	0.76
	1934-35		18	11	2	0	9	8	29	19	0.66
	1935-36		18	10	3	1	8	2	29	13	0.45
	1938-39		Discontinued		2	1	8	7	10	8	0.80
	1939-40		21	16	4	4	7	9	32	29	0.91
Total Athletic Club			140	109	47	37	69	50	256	196	0.77
Valencia C. F.	1940-41	1. a	21	14	11	9	Non-existent		32	23	0.72
	1941-42		24	20	8	6	Non-existent		32	26	0.81
	1942-43		13	2	-	-	Non-existent		13	2	0.15
	1943-44		20	16	6	6	Non-existent		26	22	0.85
	1944-45		24	16	6	1	Non-existent		30	17	0.57
	1945-46		13	4	3	4	Non-existent		16	8	0.50
Total Valencia C. F.			115	72	34	26	0	0	149	98	0.66
C. D. Baracaldo-Altos Hornos	1946-47	2. a	20	14	1	-	Non-existent		21	14	0.67
Trubia Youth	1947-48	3. a	13	4	-	-	Non-existent		13	4	0.31
C. D. Logroñés	1948-49	3. a	3+	2+	1	1	Non-existent		4+	3+	0.75
Total career			291+	201+	91	71	82	57	464+	329+	0.71
(1) The goals that proclaimed him the highest scorer of the championship were lifted. There was no League Championship (1927-28). 1.a Club by the Vizcaine Federation of Football (1926-27) and the Galician Federation of Football (1928-29). (2) Includes data from the Spanish Cup (1928-49); RFEF President Cup (1940-41); Champions Tournament (1927-28) (3) Includes data from the Vizcaya Regional Championship (1927-40); Galician Championship (1928-29). (4) Data from friendly parties are not included.

Palmarés

Regional championships

Note *: Bilbao Athletic was a reserve team or "B" of Athletic Club, which refused to participate with its first team due to its precarious sporting situation after the Civil War.

Title	Club	Year
Regional Championship	Racing Ferrol F. C.	1929
Regional Championship	Athletic Club	1931
Regional Championship		1932
Regional Championship		1933
Regional Championship		1934
Regional Championship		1935
Regional Championship	Bilbao Athletic *	1939
Regional Championship	Athletic Club	1940

National Championships

Title	Club	Year
League Championship	Athletic Club	1930
Cup		1930
League Championship		1931
Cup		1931
Cup		1932
Cup		1933
League Championship		1934
League Championship		1936
Cup	Valencia C. F.	1941
League Championship		1942
League Championship		1944

Individual distinctions