On May 4, 1935, the Spanish basketball team achieved its first international success. She was proclaimed runner-up in Europe in Geneva (Switzerland), under the republican flag and defending the Second Spanish Republic. On May 4, 2022, it will be 87 years since that first success of Spanish basketball.
In 1932, therefore, the International Basketball Federation (FIBA) had been founded. And, in 1935, the first European Basketball Championship was organized.
Eleven teams signed up for the championship. To leave them in an even number, a previous tie had to be played, a single match, between Spain and Portugal, the first in the history of the Spanish basketball team. Spain won 33-12, in Madrid, at the Chamartín soccer field, obtaining the place that allowed it to attend the European Championship in Geneva in 1935.
During the preparation of the team for the championship, the Spanish Basketball Federation informed the players that they did not have money to pay for the trip, which caused great anguish among them and the fans. Gonzalo Aguirre, who was president of the Spanish Federation from October 1935 to May 1936, in the end covered all the expenses of the trip.
In the first tie, Spain beat Belgium 25-17. In the semifinals, Spain defeated Czechoslovakia 21-17, while Latvia defeated Switzerland 28-19.
The European Grand Final was played by Spain and Latvia on May 4, 1935. The Latvians won it 24-18. They had the advantage of having a close relationship with North American basketball, which was more evolved than European basketball at that time.
In this way, Spain obtained the silver medal, while its player Rafael Martín Hassan managed to be chosen as the Best Player of the Championship.
The silver medal in the 1935 European Championship was a great success for Spanish basketball. The first great success in its history.
The Spanish team that achieved the achievement was made up of Emilio Alonso Arbeleche, Pedro Alonso Arbeleche, Joan Carbonell Verdaguer, Armando Maunier Fernández del Villar, Fernando Muscat García, Cayetano Ortega Frías, Rafael Ruano and Rafael Martín Hassan, the best player in the championship, with Mariano Manent as coach.
It was a group of players with diverse backgrounds and great talent. The Alonso Arbeleche brothers were born in Cuba, but were of Basque origin. Joan Carbonell and Armando Maunier were Catalans. Fernando Muscat was Aragonese. Cayetano Ortega was born in Madrid, but was of Panamanian origin. Rafael Ruano was a native of Costa Rica and Rafael Martín of Panama. The coach of the Spanish team, Mariano Manent, was Argentine.
The said. Diverse backgrounds and great talent.
Léon Bouffard, co-founder of FIBA in 1932 and president of the same between 1932 and 1948, former outstanding athlete and Swiss Champion of pole vault in 1914, became the best testimony of that successful talent of the Spanish basketball team. declaring: “Spain is a formidable team, which combines a refined technique with disconcerting enthusiasm and speed”.
Months after the success, the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) broke out and the team did not play again until 1943.
In the following decades, the achievement of the Spanish basketball team in the European Championship played in Geneva in 1935 was practically forgotten. The Francoist dictatorship that ruled Spain since 1939 wanted to project a negative image of the Republican era and the runner-up in the European basketball championship reflected a very different image from the one it was intended to show.
It took several decades for the memory to be reestablished, the memory of that first historical moment of Spanish basketball, and also that of its players.
On May 4, 2022, it will be 87 years since the basketball feat that occurred in 1935. In three years, it will be 90 years. It was a unique moment. Spanish basketball did not step on a podium again until almost 40 years later, until 1973 when it repeated silver in a European. It should be kept in mind.
