In 2024, it will be one hundred years since the first Olympic goal, obtained with a corner kick that went directly into the goal, without the intervention of any other player than the one in charge of execution. The name was born from a friendly match between Uruguay and Argentina, it spread widely in South America and in Europe it is known mainly in Spain.
The author of the first Olympic goal was the Argentine striker Cesáreo Onzari. Huracán player between 1921 and 1933, fifteen international times, four goals, he would surely have been discreetly forgotten if he had not had the success and fortune to score from a direct corner in the match played on the field of the Club Sportivo Barracas, in Buenos Aires , on October 2, 1924. A very special match, as we will see below.
On June 9, the Uruguayan team had been proclaimed winners of the soccer competition at the Olympic Games held in Paris. The World Cup did not yet exist and this gold medal was considered the undisputed world title. It was the first time that the tournament was sponsored by FIFA, and Uruguay repeated it in the 1928 edition. Hence, together with its world titles in 1930 and 1950, the Uruguayan team sports four stars on its shield.
The match against Argentina was scheduled for September 28, but the huge crowd exceeded all expectations and barely a few minutes could be played. 42,000 tickets had been sold, for a stadium that could accommodate 40,000, and added to the invitations and people who snuck in wherever they could, that was unsustainable. In the replay on October 2, a fence was installed for the first time to protect the playing field and it was quickly named the Olympic fence. Everything was Olympic that day. The Uruguayan team took a lap of honor around the pitch to receive the applause of the fans, repeating what they had done in Colombes after winning the gold. The Olympic return was born. And finally, the corner goal.
For the Argentines that 2-1 victory and especially the goal from the left corner of the frame defended by Andrés Mazali, goalkeeper of Nacional de Montevideo (and also outstanding basketball player and South American 400m fence champion) was the big answer to the Uruguayan Olympic success.
But like many football statistics, that first corner goal had a trick. It turns out that obtaining a goal from a direct corner kick was prohibited by the regulations. Those that had been obtained previously had been correctly annulled by the referee. However, at the IFAB (International Football Association Board, the body in charge of the rules of the game) meeting on June 14, the door was opened to the validity of goals from the corner. The new standard came into force in August 1924 in Europe and in January of the following year in South America. But the referee of that friendly, Ricardo Vallarino (incidentally, Uruguayan) knew the news and considered that, since it was a friendly match, he could perfectly validate Onzari's goal. The Uruguayans claimed a foul on the goalkeeper in the play, but it was not accepted.
Onzari always played for Huracán, although in 1925 he temporarily joined Boca Juniors for their historic European tour, the first time that an Argentine club played in Europe. There were 19 games (15 wins and one draw), with the debut in Vigo against Celta on March 5 (during the first half the roof of an adjacent factory where spectators had been placed collapsed and there were two dead and 26 injured). That reinforced Boca beat Atlético and Real in Madrid, lost in San Mamés against Real Unión and Athletic and during their time in Barcelona they beat Espanyol three times in Sarrià.
Onzari has gone down in history for his Olympic goal: “He came out because he had to go out. There was nothing else. I could never do another one like it.” One hundred years already.
