The small village of miracles where the best football players of the moment played

BarcelonaOn July 25, 1975, Ladislao Kubala walked onto a football field at the head of a group of players. These men were not unknown footballers. They were the best of the Spanish league at the time, many of them destined to play in the Argentina World Cup a few years later under the command of Ladislao, who was then the national team coach. That was no ordinary match. To begin with, the field where these stars would play was made of sand. The audience was also different. No luxury and no giant stands. It was all the people of Sarral, a town in the Conca de Barberà region with fewer than two thousand inhabitants, surrounded by fields of vineyards and olive trees.

“In Sarral, we saw incredible things, as if it were a miracle”, says Albert Esteller, a local resident who is in charge of recovering this surprising story. How did the players who shone at Barça, Athletic, or Valencia end up on a dirt field? The key was a man about whom not all the details are yet known. “There was a local man named Antón Miró Ricard who had a connection with Kubala. They were close friends. Miró was a farmer’s son who went to Barcelona to make his fortune, as many people did. And he did. He had a good relationship with Barça directors and met Kubala, so the former player started spending days in Sarral, where Miró lent him an apartment from a development he himself had built. The children of that era would go down to the football field and find Kubala training alone, running with his dog. And the Hungarian would explain to them how to strike the ball”, he explains. Kubala felt good in Sarral. So much so that he had a tribute organized for him there in 1975.

Esteller rediscovered history almost by chance. “I was looking for information about the Quintos de Sarral, which is an iconic festival. And I went to the house of Manel Moles, a man who had been secretary in the Town Hall and had a lot of information. And there I found documents that spoke of football matches from 100 years ago. The first idea was this, to do a project on the 100 years of football in Sarral. And images appeared of a Spanish national team match from that era, with its star players like Rexach, in the town. It is a unique case, to see a national team playing in such a small town,” he explains. And by asking and searching, he saw that it wasn't just that one match with Kubala at the helm. For almost 15 years, many personalities from Catalan football and sports passed through the town.

“In 1969 Salvador Sadurní came, and then Eladio, a very important Barça player. Club directors also came. And the Catalan national team of the time, the Barça veterans, the Spanish roller hockey team... everyone passed through Sarral. The president of the Catalan Football Federation, Pablo Porta, used to come here, before he was elected president of the Spanish one,” says a man who has become determined to try to organize new sporting events to remember that era, but in a different way. Now he wants Sarral to be able to see matches with good teams in order to raise awareness of Huntington's disease, a rare disease that his mother suffered from. “We could explain it by saying that it is a sum of three other diseases: Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and ALS. It has a life expectancy of 10 to 15 years from diagnosis,” he says. In order to raise funds and awareness, he made noise on social media this May, a month dedicated to this disease. “If we brought the best players then, we must aspire to do so again. I am looking for people to help me to make it big and help for a good cause,” he says.

Of those matches played half a century ago, the most surprising was that of July 25, 1975. Francoism was dying then. And the rumor ran through the town that Kubala "wanted to play one more match, even though he had retired years ago," explains Esteller. The complicity of Miró and the former player created the idea of bringing the selection of those times to Sarral. "Players like Iribar, Quini, Migueli, Rexach, Asensi, and who would be president of the Federation years later, Miguel Ángel Villar, came," recalls Esteller. Only the Real Madrid players were missing, as their then-president, Santiago Bernabéu, was convinced the match would not take place and did not give them permission. "He ended up personally apologizing to Kubala with a telegram, when he saw that the match was indeed being played and the players from the other teams were going," says Esteller. Naturally, that day people from many towns in the area gathered to see the footballers in action, who faced each other without official uniforms. In fact, they played 10 against 10, with green and yellow shirts, 30 minutes per half. It was a different match to remember Kubala. "People who lived it remember many anecdotes. It was a special day for the people, who got to meet their idols. That's the power of football. It would be nice to repeat it," concludes Esteller.