Paco Gento has passed away at the age of 88. Gone is one of the last magicians of an immortal generation, elevated to legend by the magic of a sport that for almost a century has been the absolute provider of heroes for the average man. He treasured no less than six European cups, more than anyone, supreme witness of the dictatorship to which Real Madrid subjected continental football, and was the survivor of the mythical striker who, with Rial, Kopa, Di Stéfano and Puskas, amazed to the world. Two Argentines, a Hungarian, a Frenchman of Polish origin and a Spaniard, he, Paco Gento, also nicknamed “the Cantabrian gale”. Of that unrepeatable quintet, the triplet made up of Di Stéfano, Puskas and Gento was the one that aroused the most fame and admiration, perhaps also because of the friendship that was forged between them and that often makes them appear together in photographs of those old days. On the field and off it.
Seeing now, after many years, some of those photos allows comment. In one of them are the three with the Madrid uniform, with absolute naturalness although without a doubt posing, but there is something that seems strange to the current observer: the shirts are not only white, they are exempt from any sign, propaganda or symbol other than the shield of the Real Madrid. When sports attire has become a motley and unsightly sampler, in which the butt of soccer players is used to include an advertising “message”, that cleanliness and simplicity speak to us of times when the great figures that the three of them were they didn’t have to become walking billboards to secure their payrolls. How much dignity was lost the day the first mark of whatever it was invaded the jerseys of our historic clubs!
In another that must have been taken in the late 1950s, the three friends walk along what could very well be Madrid’s Gran Vía. What one sees is three young men, athletic, smiling, properly dressed – Puskas in a closed coat, the other two in jackets and ties, Di Stéfano even with an elegant handkerchief sticking out of the breast pocket of his jacket – and, above all, , normal. Being idols of the masses did not lead them to extravagance in clothing, to exhibitionism, to the vulgarity of believing themselves to be the center of the world. Such a photo would be inconceivable today. They tell us that it was a miserable and gray society. Already.
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