Luis Otero
Personal information
Full name Luis Otero Sánchez-Encinas
Date of birth (1893-10-22)22 October 1893
Place of birth Pontevedra, Galicia, Spain
Date of death 20 January 1955(1955-01-20) (aged 61)
Place of death A Coruña, Galicia, Spain
Position(s) Defender
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1909–1911 Pontevedra Sporting Club
1911–1923 Real Vigo Sporting
1923–1924 Celta de Vigo
1924–1930 Deportivo de La Coruña
International career
1920–1924 Spain 4 (0)
1922–1923 Galicia
Medal record
Men's football
Representing  Spain
Olympic Games
Silver medal – second place 1920 Antwerp Team competition
Representing  Galicia
Prince of Asturias Cup
Silver medal – second place 1922-23 Prince of Asturias Cup Team[1]
*Club domestic league appearances and goals

Luis Otero Sánchez-Encinas (22 October 1893 – 20 January 1955) was a Spanish footballer who played as a defender and who competed in the 1920 Summer Olympics, being a member of the Spanish team that won the silver medal at the tournament.[2]

Otero is recognized as one of the most outstanding Galician footballers in history. He was part of the first teams of both Celta de Vigo and the Spanish team, and along with Moncho Gil, he is the first Galician Olympic medalist.

In his memory, the Luis Otero Trophy has been held in Pontevedra since 1959.[3]

Club career

Born in Pontevedra, he began playing football at the age of 16 at his hometown club, Pontevedra Sporting Club in 1909, and two years later he moved to Real Vigo Sporting. After playing with Sporting for almost a decade, winning four Galician Championships and reaching the semifinals of the Copa del Rey twice (in 1919 and 1920), he left the club shortly after it merged with Fortuna de Vigo to form Celta de Vigo in 1923. Although he seemed destined to be one of the mainstays of Celta de Vigo, Luis Otero, along with two other players - Chiarroni and González -, not satisfied with the discipline of the new club, left the entity before the start of the 1923 Galician Championship to sign for Deportivo de La Coruña, which ultimately proved to be one of the triggers of the historical rivalry between the Vigo and Coruña teams. Celta sued Deportivo for bribery and these protests led the Galician Federation to suspend the three "runaway" footballers for a season, accusing them of professionalism, while Deportivo was forbidden of lining them up in the Galician Championship.[4][5] However, Deportivo appealed to the Royal Spanish Football Federation, which ruled in favor of Deportivo and annulled the sanction against the club on the understanding that there had been no bribery, urging the Galician Federation to readmit Deportivo to the championship, although it maintained the sanction on the three players for having duplicate records.[6][7] The Galician Federation agreed by majority to accept the verdict of the Spanish Federation.[8] At the end of his suspension, he returned to Deportivo, where he played six seasons, winning two more Galician Championships.[citation needed]

International career

On 28 August 1920, Otero went down in history as one of the eleven footballers who played in the first game of the Spanish national team at the 1920 Summer Olympics, in an eventual 1–0 victory over Denmark.[9] He also featured in the second round of the repechage tournament against Italy which Spain won 2–0, winning the silver medal three days later after beating the Netherlands 3–1, making Otero and Moncho Gil the first Galician Olympic medalists in history. In total, he earned four caps for Spain, two at the 1920 Olympics and two in friendlies, the last of which was on 21 December 1924 at Les Corts in a 2–1 win over Austria.[10]

Being a player of Real Vigo Sporting, he was summoned to play for the Galicia national team, and he was one of the eleven footballers that played in the first game of the team's history, a 4–1 win over a Castile/Madrid XI in the quarter-finals of the 1922-23 Prince of Asturias Cup, an inter-regional competition organized by the RFEF.[11] Otero was a member of the Galacian team that reached that tournament's final, in which they lost 1–3 to Asturias national team, courtesy of a second-half brace from José Luis Zabala.[1]

Honours

Club

Real Vigo Sporting

Galician Championship:

Deportivo de La Coruña

Galician Championship:

International

Spain

Asturias

Prince of Asturias Cup:

References

  1. ^ a b Vicente Martínez Calatrava (17 August 2009). "La Copa Príncipe de Asturias" [The Prince of Asturias Cup] (in Spanish). CIHEFE. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  2. ^ "Luis Otero". Olympedia. Retrieved 15 August 2021.
  3. ^ "Trofeo Luis Otero (Pontevedra-Spain) 1959-2019". RSSSF. 17 February 2022. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  4. ^ "El pleito de los clubs Deportivo y Celta y la Federación regional de fútbol" [The lawsuit between the Deportivo and Celta clubs and the Regional Football Federation]. www.galiciana.bibliotecadegalicia.xunta.es (in Spanish). Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  5. ^ "Edición del Monday 5 November 1923, Página 2 - Hemeroteca" [Edition of Monday 5 November 1923, Page 2 - Newspaper library]. hemeroteca.mundodeportivo.com (in Spanish). La Voz de Galicia. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  6. ^ "El pleito Federación-Deportivo. Texto integro del fallo de la Federación Española" [Federation-Deportivo dispute. Full text of the ruling of the Spanish Federation]. El Ideal Gallego (in Spanish). No. 1.952. 23 December 1923. p. 3.
  7. ^ "Ecos deportivos. Un fallo de la nacional" [Sports echoes. A rulling of the National]. Galicia: diario de Vigo (in Spanish). No. 437. 26 December 1923. p. 6.
  8. ^ "Deportes. Asamblea de la Federación Gallega" [Sports. Assembly of the Galician Federation]. El Ideal Gallego (in Spanish). No. 1.993. 12 February 1924. p. 3.
  9. ^ "Denmark vs Spain, 28 August 1920". eu-football.info. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  10. ^ "Luis Otero". eu-football.info. Retrieved 18 June 2022.
  11. ^ "Galicia - Centro (4 - 1) 19/11/1922". www.bdfutbol.com. Retrieved 27 June 2022.

External links

Spain squad – 1920 Summer Olympics – Silver medalists
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