Paco Gento

Francisco Paco Gento López (Guarnizo, Cantabria, October 21, 1933-Madrid, January 18, 2022), better known as Paco Gento, was a Spanish footballer who played as a left winger. A historic player for Real Madrid Football Club, the club where he spent almost his entire sports career and where he achieved his greatest successes and world recognition, he is remembered as one of the most upright and fastest players of his time.

In December 2015, he was named honorary president of the Madrid club, a position he held until his death.

At the time of his retirement, he was the third top scorer in the history of Real Madrid C. F. —where he played for eighteen seasons—, only surpassed by his former teammates Alfredo Di Stéfano and Ferenc Puskás, all of whom were members of the well-remembered “Madrid de Di Stéfano" or "Madrid of the five European Cups", designated by UEFA as one of the best teams in history. He was likewise considered one of the best players of the 20th century according to the International Federation of History and Statistics de Fútbol (IFFHS), being also the only Spaniard by birth included in said list of fifty players. Not surprisingly, he holds the record for being the player who has won the most European Cups with six —current UEFA Champions League —, and the one that won the most Spanish League Championship titles with twelve. To the aforementioned record he added another Intercontinental Cup that accredited the club as the best in the world de iure.

He was a full international with the Spanish team in 43 matches. He participated in two World Cups, in the 1962 Chile edition and in the 1966 England edition, and was part of the team that won the first European Nations Cup for Spain, the current Euro Cup, in the 1964 edition.

In 1996 the Government of Cantabria awarded him the Gold Medal for Merit in Cantabrian Sports. In addition, he is the favorite son of El Astillero, where the name of a street has been dedicated to him. He has also received two Gold Medals for Sports Merit, the Cross of Isabel La Católica, the Cisneros Medal of the City of Madrid and the Gold and Brilliant Badges of Racing Santander and Real Madrid Club de Fútbol.

Within his family life, his dedication to the world of sports stands out, where his father, who was a player for the Cultural de Guarnizo in his hometown, would see how his offspring were also dedicated to playing soccer, where the brothers de Paco, Julio and Toñín, came to play in the First Division,^, and especially for Racing Santander. Toñín managed to share a dressing room with his brother Paco at Real Madrid in the 1961-62 season, although Julio belonged to A.D. Plus Ultra, Real Madrid C.F.'s first subsidiary, and the three of them played together for the only time in a friendly match against F.C. Zürich in the year 1959. The family saga would continue with his footballer nephews Julio and Paco Llorente, the basketball players José Luis and Toñín Llorente, all of them linked to the different sports sections of the Real Madrid Football Club. A fourth generation of athletes in the Gento-Llorente family is made up of Marcos Llorente, son of Paco Llorente, a soccer player, and basketball players Sergio Llorente and Juan Llorente, sons of José Luis Llorente.

Due to his special impact, goals, achievements and career, he was declared soccer dean by FIFA of the soccer hall of fame in 2017.

Trajectory

Beginnings in his native Cantabria

He was born in 1933 in the Cantabrian town of Guarnizo, belonging to the municipality of El Astillero. The son of a truck driver, he dropped out of school at the age of fourteen to help his father and take care of the cows they had on a small farm. He started playing at the age of 15, being a cadet in S.D. Nueva Montaña in 1948, a club where he combined soccer with athletics, thanks to which he would acquire the speed that would make him famous in the future, with the illusion of playing in the Santander Racing.

Later, he moved to the first regional category of Cantabria, signing for the Unión Club de El Astillero, and made his debut in the Third Division of Spain in the Sociedad Deportiva Rayo Cantabria, which at that time performed the functions of a subsidiary team of Real Santander, current Real Racing Club de Santander. This, which had managed to establish itself in the First Division of Spain and in which he finally ended up fulfilling one of his dreams as a child, in the 1952-53 season with which he would play only ten games de Liga in which he scored two goals, to join the discipline of Real Madrid Club de Fútbol at the age of 20 under the mandate of president Santiago Bernabéu.^,

Splendor and success at Real Madrid

Paco Gento during a European Cup match 1965-66.

After making his debut in the First Division on February 22, 1953 against the Barcelona Football Club at the old Campos de Sport, he joined the white club in the 1953-54 season, where he would remain for 18 years, after which He would retire from playing professional football and begin his career as a coach, where he would train Castilla C.F., the first subsidiary of the white club, and its lower categories, among other teams.

With the Madrid team he would win twelve national league championships (tournament record), the first in his debut year. This title was the first league title won by the club in 20 years. He was part of what has been considered one of the best forwards of all time in football history, along with the Hungarian Ferenc Puskás, the French Raymond Kopa and the Spanish-Argentines Alfredo Di Stéfano and Héctor Rial. With these players he achieved the feat still unmatched of winning five consecutive European Cups, corresponding to the first five editions of the tournament, in the years 1955-56, 1956-57, 1957-58, 1958-59 and 1959-60. To which one more would happen in the 1965-66 season, in the so-called "Madrid of the yeyé", made up mostly of national players. What helped him to become the only player in history to have won six European Cups, the most prestigious trophy at club level in Europe, and change the course of the entity, to become the dominant team in Spain and Europe.

He would also add two Spanish Cup titles, in addition to being crowned the first world champion in history by winning a new trophy, the Intercontinental Cup in 1960, played between the champions of Europe and South America that he also won in its first edition, where he would score a goal in the 5-1 aggregate victory against Club Atlético Peñarol from Uruguay. Until April 30, 2022, he was the player who had the most titles in the history of Real Madrid, at which time he was surpassed by Marcelo scallop.

He was considered the fastest winger of all time by various media and colleagues, as stated, for example, by a defender of the English team Manchester United Football Club after facing him:

"Gento runs a lot, but the worst is not how he runs, the worst is how he stops."

His speed would cause problems even for his teammates, who struggled to keep up with the Spaniard, until Héctor Rial, a teammate at the club, would instruct him to make the most of his skills.

National team

He played 44 matches with the Spanish national team, including one with Spain "B", and became part of the world team that faced the English team in 1963 to commemorate the centenary of the English Football Federation (FA).

He was also an integral part of the squad of the Spanish team that participated in the final phase of the 1964 Euro Cup, and although he did not play in it (he played matches corresponding to the qualifying phase, his goal being definitive against to the Northern Ireland team, in the second leg of the round of 16 match played in Belfast), for having formed an integral part of that squad presented in the final phase of the tournament Annex: Teams participating in Euro 1964 is officially the holder of the title according to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA)

With Spain he managed to score a total of five goals, and added a total of 23 wins, 8 draws and 12 losses. His debut took place on May 18, 1955 in a friendly against the England team that ended in a draw at one, at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium in Madrid (May 18, 1955). His last game was Spain 6, Finland 0 on October 15, 1969 in La Línea de la Concepción, Cádiz, qualifying for the World Cup in Mexico, 1970.

Participations in World Cups

• Chile 1962 (Spain)
• England 1966 (Spain)

Statistics

Clubs

Updated data to end of sports career.

Club	Div.	Season	League		Cups (1)		International (2)		Total (3)		Media Shotgun
			Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles
Real Santander S. D. SpainSpain	1. a	1952-53	10	2	4	1	-	-	14	3	0.21
Real Madrid C. F. SpainSpain	1. a	1953-54	17	-	4	-	-	-	21	0	0
		1954-55	24	6	3	-	2	-	29	6	0.21
		1955-56	29	7	6	3	7	1	42	11	0.26
		1956-57	27	7	3	-	10	4	40	11	0.28
		1957-58	28	7	5	1	6	3	39	11	0.28
		1958-59	21	7	4	2	8	1	33	10	0.30
		1959-60	27	14	5	3	6	2	38	19	0.48
		1960-61	28	9	8	3	3	2	39	14	0.36
		1961-62	25	6	9	4	9	2	43	12	0.28
		1962-63	25	7	4	1	2	1	31	9	0.29
		1963-64	24	12	2	-	9	3	35	15	0.43
		1964-65	23	4	3	-	6	5	32	9	0.28
		1965-66	28	10	3	2	9	3	40	15	0.38
		1966-67	20	11	5	-	5	-	30	11	0.37
		1967-68	24	8	1	-	7	5	32	13	0.41
		1968-69	26	8	2	1	2	-	30	9	0.30
		1969-70	24	3	4	1	3	3	31	7	0.22
		1970-71	7	-	2	-	6	-	15	0	0
Total Real Madrid C. F.			427	126	73	21	100	35	600	182	0.30
Total career			437	128	77	22	100	35	614	185.	0.30
(1) It includes data from the Spanish Cup (1952-71). (2) It includes data from the Intercontinental Cup (1960-66); Latin Cup (1954-57); European Cup (1955-70); European Cup (1970-71). (3) It does not include goals in friendly matches.

Selections

Selection	Season	Europeans		World(3)		Friendly(4)		Total		Media Shotgun
		Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles	Part.	Goles
Spain	1954-55	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	0	0
	1955-56	-	-	-	-	1	-	1	0	0
	1956-57	-	-	3	-	2	-	5	0	0
	1957-58	-	-	1	-	2	-	3	0	0
(3) It includes data in classification phases of the Euro Cup (1954-70). (4) Includes data in World Cup classification phases (1954-70).

Coach

Club	Seasons
Castilla C. F.	?
C. D. Castellón	1974
Palencia C. F.	1977-79
Grenada C. F.	1980-81
Real Madrid C. F.	?
Cantabrian selection	1997-03

Palmares and distinctions

National Championships

Title	Club	Year
League Championship	Real Madrid C. F.	1954
League Championship		1955
League Championship		1957
League Championship		1958
League Championship		1961
League Championship		1962
Cup		1962
League Championship		1963
League Championship		1964
League Championship		1965
League Championship		1967
League Championship		1968
League Championship		1969
Cup		1970

International Championships

The official status of the Little Club World Cup in 1956 is not clear.

Title	Equipment	Year
Euro	Spain	1964
Latin Cup	Real Madrid C. F.	1955
European Cup		1956
Small World Cup		1956
European Cup		1957
Latin Cup		1957
European Cup		1958
European Cup		1959
European Cup		1960
Intercontinental Cup		1960
European Cup		1966

Individual awards

When he retired from soccer, he had a brief stint in politics.

In 1996 the Government of Cantabria awarded him the Gold Medal for Merit in Cantabrian Sports. He is also the Favorite Son of El Astillero where the name of a street has been dedicated to him. He has also received the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Sports Merit (2001), two Gold Medals for Sports Merit, the Isabel La Católica Cross, the Cisneros Medal of the City of Madrid and the Gold and Brilliant Insignia of Racing de Santander and Real Madrid Club de Fútbol where he was also named ambassador of the club in Europe in 2001.^, On September 20, 2015, he received a star on the Tetuán Walk of Fame in Santander.