Ángel González-Adrio: The Last Survivor of Spain’s First Basketball World Cup Team

73 years have passed and the memory is still alive. In the attic of a flat in Barcelona with views of the Camp Nou, the Galician Ángel González-Adrio sits in an office full of pictures and papers. In February he turned 92 and walks with the same pause with which he talks. When the talk begins, Ángel closes his eyes, smiles and travels through time from his chair. He returns to the Luna Park pavilion, in Buenos Aires. From October 22 to November 3, 1950. On that court and in those 12 days, the first basketball World Cup in history is played. Spain is among the 10 participants. And he, born in Pontevedra on February 10, 1931 and emigrated with his family to Argentina as a child, is one of the 12 members of the first national team in a World Cup.

His teammates are Eduardo Kucharski, Álvaro Salvadores, Andreu Oller, Joan Dalmau, Arturo Imedio, Joan Ferrando, Ángel Lozano, Jaume Bassó, José Julio Gámez, Domingo Bárcenas and Ignacio Pinedo. Only Ángel González-Adrio is still alive, and his return to the past allows us to recall the origins of a Spanish team that today is world and European champion, and that this summer, from August 25 to September 10 in the Philippines, Japan and Indonesia , will defend his World Cup crown. The golden seed was planted by pioneers like Ángel.

The Spanish team for the 1950 World Basketball Championship. Above, from left to right: a physical trainer and the players Domingo Bárcenas, Jaume Bassó, Ángel González-Adrio, Arturo Imedio, Andreu Oller and Joan Dalmau, and coach Michael Rutzgis; below, Ángel Lozano, Álvaro Salvadores, Ignacio Pinedo, Joan Ferrando, Eduardo Kucharski and José Julio Gámez. Kike Rincon (Kike Rincon)

“I lived in Buenos Aires until shortly before that World Cup. Since I was three years old until my mother died in ’48 and we came back. My father had already passed away. I was the third of three brothers. Rafael and Pedro were 18 and 13 years older than me, and mom said that I had had a bad trip. We went to Argentina a few days before the Civil War began in Spain, but Rafael, the eldest, who was a teacher, stayed because he had a degree and they sent him to an officers’ course. I started playing basketball in front of my house, in the Buenos Aires National Association, ANBA. Then I moved on to Gymnastics and Fencing, and we were champions for children and cadets in Buenos Aires”, recalls González-Adrio.

Basketball in Spain was in its awakenings. The League, which would be born in 1956, did not exist, but rather the regional championships and the Spanish one, a kind of current Cup. The team appeared in that Argentine World Cup with only 16 games to its credit since its debut in 1935. It had qualified for the event in a previous tournament in January, in Nice, and crossed the pond thanks to a permit from General José Moscardó to play outside of Spain. At 19 years old, González-Adrio was the youngest in the group, and also one of the tallest, 1.85m.

“For the World Cup we concentrated on a military academy in Toledo. The physical training was done for us by an Army captain ”, revives the Galician. The Federation had hired a foreign coach, the Lithuanian nationalized American Michael Rutzgis, a peculiar guy, fond of Spanish wine, opposed to the fact that the players wore a mustache and who left the concept of blockade as a sports novelty. In the mornings he himself was in charge of preparing the boys “an orange drink” that he washed down “with gin”. “How was it? Bad! With that mix of Eastern and American country… It was very different from what we knew”, recalls González-Adrio.

Minutes of the match between Spain and Egypt (56-57) in the 1950 World Cup.

The trip to Argentina was “eternal”: 36 hours by plane with stops in Lisbon, Dakar, Natal and Rio before arriving in Buenos Aires. There the last member of the expedition was waiting for them, Álvaro Salvadores, a Spanish player who lived in Chile and who, upon learning that the team would play in the World Cup, sent a letter to the federation president, General Jesús Querejeta, along with photos and press clippings. about their matches in the Chilean championship. Spain recruited him and his colleagues found him at the airport. “He was shooting with his hands behind his head, propelling the ball from behind,” says González-Adrio. With an average of 13.8 points, Salvadores was the top scorer in the tournament, but his teammates criticized him for being an individualist and in 1952 he played the Games with Chile.

“When I was 1.85 I played forward and center. The tallest were the Americans, much taller than the rest. The positions weren’t so defined and sometimes we weren’t clear who was playing base”, points out Ángel. Spain debuted with a one point defeat, 56-57 against Egypt, and the stumble was followed by another three against Chile (40-54), Peru (37-43) and Ecuador (54-50). The national team only won one match… which was not played. Yugoslavia (where Boris Stankovic, later FIBA ​​Secretary General, lined up) did not appear due to his condemnation of Francoism and officially lost the duel 2-0. Argentina was world champion by beating the United States 64-50. Spain was tenth and last.

Ángel González-Adrio highlights that it was “a pride to be in the first Spanish team in a basketball World Cup”. But so much time later, a wound remains open. “The coach left me without playing. Not a second. It’s been 73 years and that still hurts me. They told him that there was a confrontation between Castilians and Catalans, two sides, and I, who am Galician, was left without participating, ”he laments. He also does not report earnings: “I don’t know if they paid us any diet…”. He fondly remembers, yes, a photo with Roberto Viau, an Argentine figure, with whom he had met when he was young.

The Galician emigrant who returned played for several clubs, Español, Montgat and Mollet. And he retired at only 28 years old. “He was studying Industrial Engineering, Electricity section, and could not combine the two things. I quit basketball, ”he comments. Curiously, his last name, González-Adrio, became famous for his nephew Rafael, a Barça soccer doctor who treated Cruyff, Maradona (he operated on him after Goikoetxea’s remembered entrance) and Schuster, among others, in addition to being a former basketball player. in the Barcelona team and in Madrid, and 14 international times.

From that pioneering generation, Kucharski was the coach in the Olympic debut of Spanish basketball, in Rome 1960, as well as coaching Barça, Joventut and Virtus; Pinedo led Estudiantes and Real Madrid (he died of a heart attack in a game); and Domingo Bárcenas, triumphed in handball as a player, coach, selector and president of the federation.

Spain is now preparing a new World Cup. At his house, Ángel will turn on the television. Once again, he will travel to the past. He didn’t play a second, but he made history.

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2023-07-30 04:51:29
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