In the summer of 1963, Valencia made a tour of Mexican lands. It was not an easy tour, as the Mexican state did not recognize Franco's Spain. Valencia's coach at the time was the Basque Jacinto Quincoces, a legend of Spanish football who had played for Madrid. During that tour, Quincoces met up with Luis Regueiro. Basque like him. A former Madrid player like him. But the first had sympathized with the Francoists and the second, with the Republicans, which is why he ended up exiled in Mexico. During that tour, they dined together with other former footballers who had been separated by the Civil War. They took photographs together, and those who lived in Mexico gave Quincoces an album in which a handwritten text could be read: "Noble friendship. Against cold and hot wars, atomic bombs, political agreements and all the disgust and deceit that currently roam the world in which we live... It is so strong and indestructible that neither years nor distance can crack it".The album has ended up in the hands of the Catalan historian Arnau González i Vilalta, who has published El primer clásico antes del abismo (Editorial Base). A work in which he investigates what happened to the Real Madrid and Barça players who played the final of the Copa de la República on June 21, 1936, a match played a few days before the start of the Civil War. Players like Quincoces and Regueiro. Madrid won 2-1, with Ricardo Zamora making a key save on the Barça player Escolà in the final minutes of the match. "In the photos you can see how Zamora stops the ball just over the goal line. It's an iconic image, as the photograph captures the white dust rising from the goal line. A striking image, when you think of everything that came after," says the historian. The war also took its toll on those athletes. González has spoken with the descendants of the players who played that match, and has traveled abroad several times, especially to Mexico. He has rummaged through archives and has taken the book further, to place it in its historical context. "It's a long story that will extend to a dinner in Mexico City in 1963, summarized in an album of photographs that some of the protagonists of the match gave to the Real Madrid defender Jacinto Quincoces," he explains.