In February 2001, a small group of journalists were at Caffè Greco in Via dei Condotti in Rome in the middle of the afternoon, hanging out until the time of the game that night (Lazio-Real Madrid) when three people entered the premises. They were Alfredo di Stéfano, Paco Gento and Amancio, whom Florentino Pérez, elected president of Real Madrid the previous summer, had named club ambassadors that season with the mission of traveling with the team around Europe. It was a way to recognize the legends of the club and also to give them a salary that the three of them probably needed.
The reaction of the few customers at Caffè Greco was instantaneous. They began to applaud the three new arrivals who, uncomfortable, drank their coffee at the bar in one gulp and left in a hurry. He was not very given to making friends. The three would become honorary presidents of Real Madrid and the last of them, Amancio, died yesterday in Madrid of cancer at the age of 83. He had been in office only since October 2, 2022.
Amancio had arrived at Real Madrid in the 1962-63 season through the personal commitment of Santiago Bernabeu, dazzled by his good work at Deportivo. He would no longer move from Madrid not even in 60 years he stopped practicing as a Galician, according to the clichés. He rarely looked at your face when he spoke to you, he was very closed to his things but when he opened up to you he could spend hours telling you stories about him. He had the mania of him. Like all A Coruña natives, he never called his city A Coruña, but rather La Coruña or, better, simply, Coruña.
On the current board of directors of Real Madrid there is another from A Coruña: José Manuel Otero Lastres, whom everyone calls Manel, a lawyer who has accompanied Florentino Pérez since 2000. Otero Lastres confessed this Tuesday morning to this newspaper that "for Florentino and for Amancio was one of the few myths that remained from our youth", a type of footballer that is not in style today (read the cases of Cristiano or Sergio Ramos instead), "with a dribbling football that is no longer seen, but that would be priceless today." Upon hearing the news of Amancio's death, Florentino Pérez canceled his trip to Liverpool and Emilio Butragueño took the plane back.
Amancio, who was also behind Barcelona, entered Madrid with the season already started, in September 1962, after Real Madrid lost in the first round of the European Cup against the modest Anderlecht, which was considered a drama. and an affront to a team that had just played in the final (lost to Inter in Vienna) and that had very recent memories of five wins in a row.
Everyone predicted a long journey through the desert, but the whites won their sixth European Cup just four years later (1966), with the Yeyé team, which still included Gento and which had Amancio and Pirri as its big stars. Amancio scored the first of the goals in the victory in Brussels against Partizan (2-1).
Retired in 1976 after winning nine league titles, Amancio's coaching career was brief, a few months in the first team, but he had an important legacy. As coach of Castilla, he gave birth to what is known as the Vulture's Fifth: Butragueño, Michel, Sanchís (who 32 years later would lift the Seventh in Amsterdam), Martín Vázquez and Pardeza.
Except for Michel, who was by videoconference (he leads the Greek Olympiacos), and summoned by Butragueño, the other four components of the Fifth went to the hospital last Sunday for one last visit. They cried together. Amancio couldn't have had a better farewell.
