Alfredo Di Stefano

The death of Alfredo Di Stéfano, football legend with a capital letter, player for Real Madrid and the Spanish team, and in recent times honorary president of the white team, has shocked all fans of the king of sports, and ultimately the citizen on foot, who appreciated the naturalness and simplicity of the character. The brilliant athlete who won 5 European Cups was 88 years old, and suffered a heart attack on Saturday, July 5, from which he could not recover.

Although he would never receive an Oscar or a Goya, Alfredo Di Stéfano had a film career made up of several films, among which stands out Saeta rubia , from 1956, directed by Javier Setó , and where the title alluded to the nickname by which he was always known . In the film, Di Stéfano played himself, a famous soccer player who tried to help the boys involved in the theft of his wallet, through sports, “mens sana in corpore sano”, you know.

Di Stéfano made his screen debut in his country of origin, Argentina, with Con los misma colores , from 1949. He was directed by Carlos Torres Ríos, and at that time he was playing for River Plate. Other films in which he could be seen are Once pairs of boots , by Francisco Rovira Beleta , from 1953, and La batalla del domingo , under the orders of Luis Marquina , from 1963. More recently he was, as it could not be otherwise, in the documentary Real, the movie , from 2005.

A great football fan, the film director José Luis Garci defined Di Stéfano as “the Shakespeare of football”, and stated in 2012 in El País that “heaven would be, for example, seeing Di Stéfano’s Madrid competing with Barça of Guardiola”.