Santiago Bernabéu was a lawyer by trade, but he possessed the one thing that defines entrepreneurial tycoons across the industrial age, from Carnegie to Bezos: Vision and an unshakable belief in turning that into reality. He was a theatre impresario who built the greatest stage on Earth and filled it with the finest actors. And in the European Cup he saw the chance to take his works beyond his own playhouse to the silver screen, showing the world what he had created. The 1950s had seen Cecil B. DeMille’s The Greatest Show on Earth pick up the Best Oscar, but Bernabéu’s version may well have been the better production.

His position as a Vice-President on the original L’Equipe organising committee outlined his rising stock within the emerging European football bourgeoisie. Bernabéu was not a magnate like his counterparts in Italy, the northern industrialists of Agnelli (Juventus), Moratti (Inter) or Andrea Rizzoli at Milan, but neither was he just a local benefactor looking for some kudos in the community like the chairman and directors of English football. It was his decision in the mid-1940s to build the best stadium in Europe that created the Real Madrid we know today.

He had always loved football stadiums. As a youngster he and his brother Marcelo helped roll the pitch at the Campo de O’Donnell, the first permanent home of Madrid FC (the Real patronage came later in 1920). Before Bernabéu the President, there was Bernabéu the player. Joining the club in 1909 as a 14 year old in the inaugural Junior team, he made the transition to the first team as a 17 year old. Like many of the Madrid players at that time, he was part of the urban middle and upper classes and he followed his father into law. The Spanish League was not formed until 1929 so the King’s Cup (Copa Del Rey) was the major competition during Bernabéu’s playing career. He starred in the team that reached the final in 1916, although he missed a penalty in the semi against FC Barcelona. A year later they would win, but Bernabéu missed the final due to injury.

Bernabéu held a number of additional roles at the club from the obscure (ticket seller) to the prominent (manager). In 1943 he was named President upon recommendation from the Castilian Football Federation. The incumbent Real president Antonio Peralba jumped before he was pushed and resigned following the controversial 11-1 victory over Barcelona in the Copa Del Rey in which Real handed out whistles to all fans, and it’s rumoured Barcelona received a visit from either a policeman or the head of state security, depending on what story you believe. Either way the tie created a lot of unwanted headlines and both clubs were ‘encouraged’ to find new men to head up their organizations.

For context, Spain’s Civil War lasted from 1936 until 1939. It would see approximately 500,000 people die and result in the replacement of the Republican, left leaning government with the military dictatorship of General Franco and his Nationalist forces. The imposition of a Castilian nationalist identity and the suppression of the Basque and Catalan languages, as well as the lingering battle scars, created deep divisions across Spain. Though Madrid would be the last city to fall to the Nationalists following a two and half year siege, it would, as the capital subsequently become the representation of the government authority in direct opposition to the cities of the periphery, notably Bilbao and Barcelona.

Bernabéu was a simple choice. He had fought for the Nationalists in the Civil War and had been part of General Muñoz Grandes troops when they took Barcelona in 1939. As a player, he felt he had been denied a Spanish cap, due to the need to fill regional quotas. A proud Castilian, he once once stated: ‘I’m sorry Catalans, Galicians and Basques, but the Castilians were sharper than them on the battlefield, head to head, and they beat them in every era.’^

He was Madrid through and through, had friends in the right places at the right time, and held a burning desire to ensure his club held its rightful place in Spanish football. He also represented a rare breed. In British football, the rise of professionalism had created a divide in which the ‘gentlemen’ footballers of the game’s early inception dared not to cross and their clubs, the Old Etonians, the Wanderers, the Corinthians, etc. were not part of football’s emerging structure. On the continent, things were different. The early adopters were certainly of the professional classes, but the game grew with them and the same networks that were active in the game could be entrusted to manage it.

When Bernabéu took over as President he wrestled with the question of not only making Real Madrid the best club in Spain but creating something more transcendent: ‘How could we break through this barrier of the ordinary, and emerge to a new level of presenting better football to bigger crowds?’^ he asked himself constantly on his many fishing expeditions.

The answer he settled on was that he needed to build a home fit for Kings (or Generals) then buy the Kings (and Generals). Madrid’s Chamartin ground had been destroyed during the Spanish Civil War and although the club had repaired it, its 16,000 seats were not in keeping with Bernabéu’s vision. He would have to build a new stadium. The problem was in his words that Real Madrid ‘had no money for the scheme, but we had plenty of opposition. The idea of a gigantic stadium for the then ‘little’ Real Madrid was widely described as ‘Nonsensical!’^

He may have been correct on the money and the opposition, but he was using some creative licensing in his description of the ‘little’ Real Madrid. Until the outbreak of the Civil War in 1936, Real Madrid had seven Copa Del Rey wins and three La Liga titles to their name. They had enjoyed two major spells of success, winning four Copa Del Rey’s in a row between 1905 and 1908 and, in the early 30s, they would win two La Liga titles on the bounce. For comparison at the point: Barcelona had eight Copa Del Rey’s and one La Liga title and Athletic Bilbao had four La Liga titles and 13 Copa Del Rey’s. Real’s city rivals, Atletico had won nothing, nor had Valencia. Real Madrid were comfortably in the elite of Spanish football prior to the Civil War.

It was the immediate aftermath of the war that gave rise to Bernabéu’s need for action. Spanish football competitions restarted in 1939 and whilst Barcelona and Athletic Bilbao carried on as before, new competitors arrived from Valencia and Sevilla, both of whom would win La Liga and the Copa Del Rey. More concerning for Real, city rivals Atletico were now becoming a legitimate threat to their capital dominance.

Athletic Madrid as they were known prior to 1941, had lost eight members of their squad during the Civil War and subsequently were merged with the Zaragoza based Aviación Nacional, the team of the Spanish air force. Aviación had been promised a top division spot by the authorities, and so Atlético Aviación de Madrid was born. The new team clinched the first two Championships post-war and were perennially challenging for the top prizes. They dropped the Aviación in 1947 settling on Club Atlético de Madrid.

Construction for Real’s new Chamartin stadium began in 1944. The company line on funding is that it was paid for through the generosity of the Madrid members who responded to the club’s bond issue. This provided all the required funds. According to Bernabéu:

‘Thus this great and beautiful ground was made available to us without any state, municipal, or institutional help. It grew straight from the hearts and hopes of our loyal core of supporters, their friends, and other Madrilanians whose imagination was caught up by our plans.’^

Beautiful words and a noble cause, but how true was this? As Sid Lowe has shown in his book Fear and Loathing in La Liga, Bernabéu’s version of events conveniently omits a couple of details: The Spanish government provided 5% of the initial 30M Peseta cost, a Bank close to the regime was chosen to fund the entire project and the DND (National Sports Delegation), Franco government’s agency that oversaw sporting project, purchased close to 1M pesetas of bonds.

The land that was purchased for the ground has grown to be one of the club’s biggest assets, as it has become one of Madrid’s most valued postcodes. After a couple of years of ground-sharing with Atletico, the New Chamartin stadium was opened in 1947 with a capacity of over 100,000. For a club that averaged crowds of 16,000 this certainly would provide spectators with room to stretch their legs, yet in their inaugural league match against Athletic Bilbao, 75,000 people showed up to set a record for a football match in Spain.

Despite this, Real remained still the second best side in Madrid, never mind the country at-large. In the inaugural season at the new stadium they finished 11th of 14, 2 pts above the relegation spots. The following seasons would show some improvement, but they still remained also-rans; 3rd in ‘49, 4th in ‘48, 4th in ‘50, 9th in ‘51, 3rd again in ‘52 and ‘53. In that period between 1948 and 1953, the title would be shared between Madrid’s two rivals: Atletico would win the title twice under Helenio Herrera in ‘50 and ‘51, with FC Barcelona the Champions in 1948, 1949, 1952 and 1953.

They would finally win the title in ‘54, over a decade into Bernabéu’s regin and seven years after the stadium opened. The coach for that season, Enrique Fernández was a Uruguyan, formerly of Barcelona. To this day, he remains the only man to win the La Liga with both clubs. He was gone mid-way through the next season, but Real would keep winning: Champions in ‘55 ‘57 and ‘58. Four titles in five seasons, doubling their achievements of the previous 30 plus years. Of course, they’d also win five European Cups in that time too.

It’s not hard to recognise that there was a significant event that changed the tide of their history around 1953. And yet, it so nearly never happened. Delete

As the Economist Stefan Szymanski succinctly put it in his 2015 book, Money and Soccer: ‘You need two things to have a successful team: good players and a large stadium.’ For Bernabéu, the strategic risk to build a new stadium was now paying off, so much so that by 1955, an expansion and remodelling expanded the capacity of the stadium to 125,000. For context, the highest attendance of an English team in their own ground was 85,000 and the average Football League attendance in 1955 was 32,000. Madrid, however were sorely lacking in the ‘good players’ department and it was in 1953 that the second-phase of Bernabéu’s project began.

For those born in the latter part of the 20th century, a ‘Galactico’ conjures up images of Luis Figo, Zinedine Zidane and David Beckham, and the largess of Chairman Florentino Perez. Though it made for some scintillating football, the strategy’s failings were summed up with transfer of the defensive midfielder Claude Makelele. The Frenchman was essential to the function of the team but not the marketing department. Perez, however, was just continuing in a tradition established by Bernabéu who established a practice of signing one outstanding player to his team every year.

Though Perez had multiple revenue streams and multiple markets to consider, Bernabéu’s primary source of finance was through his gate receipts. A big stadium in the 50s, was like having a bumper TV deal now. But whilst the TV deal provides guaranteed revenue for several seasons, you need to fill the stadium every week. This relationship was summarised by Bernabéu in 1961: ‘In exchange for their money, and for their faith, we “contract”, then, with our supporters to provide football of first quality.’^ For almost a decade, that ‘first quality’ was orchestrated by Alfredo Di Stéfano, Bernabéu’s original Galactico. It is not possible to adequately outline how significant Di Stéfano’s impact was at Real Madrid. There have been players who have taken a club over the top, but there are few who have completely transformed it. Di Stéfano’s arrival was perfectly timed. The onset of the European Cup ensured he was ready to etch his name in stone as the first immortal of the tournament.

Di Stéfano was born in Buenos Aires in 1926, the son of an Italian father and an Argentine mother of French and Irish extraction. His father, Alfredo Sr.had played for River Plate for a brief time, notably scoring twice in three games in the 1913 League Championship. This was a seminal year in Argentinian football, as the winners, Racing, became the first native team to win the Association Argentine Football League. Prior to this, it had been a league (the third oldest in the World behind England and Scotland) dominated by the British expatriate clubs. Di Stéfano senior’s River finished in a three-way tie at the top of the table, missing out on an eventual playoff on goal difference.

Football had become an essential cornerstone of the emerging Argentine identity, fusing together the multitude of different immigrants that arrived from Europe in the second-half of the 19th century. An Argentinian football style became glorified as a representation of a country searching for a collective identity. Seen as the product of the potreros the empty patches of land strewn throughout the city, La Nuestra (Our Way) came to dominate Argentinian football for the next half century.

Dr Mark Orton has written extensively on the topic:

‘At the core of la nuestra was spontaneity, the ability to use individual skill and out-think the opposition that resulted from players not being formally coached how to play. Working class boys escaping the crowded conventillos and freed from adult supervision were supposedly innovators of a differentiated style of play which militated towards close ball control on capricious surfaces and the use of viveza criolla or ‘native cunning’ to outwit opponents in one-to-one situations.’^

It is almost certainly a convenient, romanticised and revisionist take on Argentine football history, largely propagated by the seminal sports magazine El Grafico. Working-class boys were playing football in similar environments the world over but it became a major element of Argentinian footballing and indeed national identity.

In Buenos Aires one of these working-class boys displaying those very qualities was playing on the streets in the district of Barracas. Later Alfredo Di Stefano’s father’s work in the potato industry took him out to the vast expanses of a farm outside the city, but the roots of his game were developed in the potreros.

The most iconic exponents of this style were the River Plate side of the 1940s, known as La Máquina (the Machine) and their famed forward line of Moreno, Labruna, Pederna, Munoz and Loustau. It was in the middle of this golden period, in 1944 that young Alfredo joined the youth ranks at Los Millonarios (not to be confused with either of his next two clubs). In 1945, Moreno had moved to Mexico and it was Di Stéfano who was brought in from the youth ranks to complete the forward line. They called him El Alemán (the German), in time he would be known as La Saeta Rubia, (the Blond Arrow).

After his rookie season with River, Di Stéfano was loaned out to Huracan for a successful spell but would return the following season to take his place in the River forward line. Significantly, it was then he made the move from winger to centre-forward. 1947 would be the high-point of Di Stéfano’s career in Argentina. He would win the Championship with River and the 1947 South American Championship, the forerunner to the Copa America. In six games for Argentina, Di Stéfano would score six times. These would be his only goals and appearances for his country. He would never again represent La Albiceleste.

The Argentinian players’ strike of 1948 and 1949 coincided with the launch of the breakaway Division Mayor or Dimayor in Colombia which had been formed following a dispute with the Colombian FA and existed outside of the FIFA structures. The growing unrest in Argentina resulted from a failure of players to receive appropriate salaries and contractual rights from their clubs. There was no minimum wage nor freedom of contract, regardless of whether players were being paid on time or not.

Di Stéfano keenly felt antagonism towards the ownership structures at River Plate and participated in the strike in the November 1948 season. There was certainly some personal motivation. He wanted to be paid what he was worth, and he did not feel that the management at River shared the same opinion of his value. Of course, until this point, there was little a player could do except hope for a move to Europe. But now there was Colombia. Adolfo Pedernera had been the original marquee signing and he would return to Buenos Aires and tell of the riches to be had in ‘El Dorado’. Despite an offer from Torino, Di Stéfano made the move North in 1949.

The league would attract a host of high-profile players from across South America and even a few from England, Neil Franklin and Charlie Mitten who teamed up with Hector Rial at Sante Fe, but it was the Millionarios team that became the poster boys. Di Stéfano’s teammates also included former River player Nestor Rossi and national team goalkeeper Julio Cozza. The side became known as the Ballet Azul (Blue Ballet) and would win the title in all but one of Di Stéfano’s seasons there.

In 1951, the renegade Colombian league was accepted back into the fold by FIFA in an agreement known as the ‘Lima Pact’. A condition of the arrangement was that players who had breached their contracts would have to return to their parent clubs in 1954. On the flip side, they could compete against foreign opposition and the biggest draw was Millianarios considered by many to be one of the finest teams in the world. No man was more aware of this than Santiago Bernabéu who arranged a series of reciprocal fixtures in Colombia and Spain in 1952. The highlight would be Milllanarios participation in a tournament to celebrate Real’s 50th anniversary. And so it was, on a rainy night in March 1952, Alfredo Di Stéfano made his first appearance at the Chamartin stadium.

The South Americans had had an inauspicious start to their trip drawing with Valencia and losing to Las Palmas but they saved their best for the big occasion and the match against their hosts. Just after half-time Di Stéfano met a cross from Castillo to score his second of the night and put Millonarios 4-0 ahead. Madrid would pull two back, but the die was cast. A big occasion, a big performance, the ‘Blue Ballet’ at its peak.

During Christmas of ‘52, Di Stéfano travelled back to Buenos Aires for the holiday and decided he didn’t want to leave. Millionarios were understandably upset, especially as he had recently received an upfront payment of $4000 for the season ahead. It would get worse.

Whilst painting his kitchen, Di Stéfano received a phone call from FC Barcelona scout Pep Samitier sounding him out on a move to Spain. From a transfer perspective, it was very murky. Essentially, River Plate still held his rights, so any deal had to include them. However, thanks to the recent Lima Pact, this did not apply until October 1954. Theoretically, Di Stéfano could be purchased by paying a transfer fee to River Plate, but he would remain a Millonarios player for another year and a half. Not that Millonarios wanted to keep him desperately at this stage, however they still wanted to be compensated for their prior investment.

In the short version of the story, Barca agreed a fee with River. So far, so good, they would get Di Stéfano in October 1954. They just needed to agree on a fee with Millonarios. The fact this was not confirmed did not stop Barcelona bringing Di Stéfano over to Catalonia in the spring of 1953. He was given an apartment in the city centre and spent time around the city and posed in the Barcelona shirt. It would only be a matter of time before he pulled on the famous blaugrana jersey. Barca’s issue however, was that they failed to complete the negotiations with Millionarios. The Colombians wanted $40,000, Barca countered with $10,000. Talks were at an impasse and Di Stéfano was growing frustrated. This opened a door for Real Madrid.

Real crowbarred themselves into the deal via the young executive Raimundo Saporta who would go on to play a crucial role in Real’s participation in the inaugural season. The son of Turkish Jews, Saporta and his family had to flee their Paris home in 1941 due to the Nazi takeover of France. A basketball specialist, he had come into Bernabéu’s orbit after being tasked to set up a basketball tournament for Real’s 50th anniversary. Bernabéu liked what he saw in the young man and gave him a job in the football side of the club, despite his insistence that he knew nothing about the smaller ball game. He would become a vital cog in the Real Madrid machine over their years of domination although his lasting legacy would be in basketball. Utilizing their strong relationship Saporta made a deal with the Colombians, offering them $27,000 and a series of friendly matches. He also developed a relationship with Di Stéfano, right at the time his contact at Barca, Pep Samitier, was leaving the club. Things were now getting a lot trickier and Barca even considered selling their rights to the player to Juventus.

The tug-of-war between the two clubs had now caused a lot of media attention and the affair reached government level. With no solution in sight, a final agreement had to be decided on by the Spanish Federation with the blessing of FIFA. It was a carefully crafted piece of diplomacy that showed no awareness of the realities of football. The federation determined that the two clubs should share Di Stéfano, one year on, one year off until 1957. Real crucially, getting him the first year.

Barca president Martí Carreto who had felt pressured to sign the agreement, resigned soon after and in October, a month after Di Stéfano had made his first appearance for Real Madrid, they signed over their full rights to him and got their money back from River Plate.

The decision to do so has caused significant anguish in Catalonia for the past 60 years. As Sid Lowe states:‘It is either the biggest mistake in their history or the biggest robbery, depending on your point of view. Either way, it is big.’^

In Madrid it was seen as payback for the László Kubala deal, in which Barca stole him from under their noses. Kubala, a Hungarian exile, was playing with a touring team in 1950 and faced off against Madrid, who subsequently offered him a contract. Allegedly, Samitier convinced a half-drunk Kubala to board a train to Barcelona instead of signing with Real and join the Catalans instead.

There are additional theories that Samitier, who would cross the divide and join Madrid in the late 50s, acted as a double agent, friendly as he was with the ruling government regime. Di Stéfano, himself, was just glad he could get back to playing football. His first game was a friendly against French outfit Nancy with the league debut v Racing Santander. But it was two months later that he really made his mark. Madrid faced Barca, Di Stéfano scored twice as Madrid won 5-0 and they would go on to win the league for the first time in 21 years. They would win it again, the year after in 1954/55.

Di Stéfano was joined by his fellow Argentine and veteran of the Colombian League, Hector Rial in 1954. Alongside the young Cantabiran Francisco ‘Paco’ Gento, who joined from Racing Santander, the midfielder Miguel Muñoz and the center-half Marquitos (also signed from Santander) they would make up the spine of the Real team that would compete in the inaugural European Cup.

Di Stéfano guaranteed goals. In the European Cup alone he hit the net 49 times in 58 games (the record for the competition, prior to the Champions League era), scored in five consecutive finals and is one of three men to score a hat-trick in an European Cup or Champions League final. Yet the goals are only part of the story as his Real Madrid teammates found out early on. Vincent Meria explained to Ian Hawkey in Di Stéfano:

‘When he arrived it was as a number nine. We thought he was going to be always up front, expecting passes. No. We very soon saw he would be coming deep, exchanging passes, contributing to the organisation of the team, defending when the opposition had the ball. It was really striking the different things he did, the way he thought.’^

Di Stéfano was simultaneously Casemiro, Modric, and Ronaldo. Covering the ground in the middle of the field to win the ball back, finding the perfect pass in the final third and ruthlessly finishing opportunities. In 2014, Austrian football coach and analyst Rene Maric, wrote an in-depth piece for the tactical blog Spielverlagerung on Di Stéfano. As he noted: ‘Di Stéfano could play all of the central positions; center forward, second striker, ten, eight, six, central defender, libero. But he played them all simultaneously.’^ Helenio Hererra memorably noted: ‘People tell me, ‘Pele is the first violinist in the orchestra,’ and I would answer, ‘Yes, but Di Stéfano is the whole orchestra!’.

He possessed a set of skills that allowed him to be a master of all these roles. An awareness to anticipate and recover balls on the defensive side, close control and ability to receive under pressure and shake off defenders, the speed to carry the ball into space and transition defence to attack in an instant. A passing range that allowed for one-two’s in tight spaces and sweeping balls in behind defensive lines. Movement in the opposition box to gain space and a toolbox of different finishes. Connecting all this was his inextinguishable stamina.

As coaches changed throughout the years, Di Stéfano would remain a constant, leading the team by example on and off the field. He was not the most receptive to newcomers, as many new signings would discover and he certainly didn’t welcome challenges to his own exalted status, but invariably one thing mattered more to him than anything, as Ferenc Puskás illustrated:

‘I’ll tell you what dominated his life: the enormous desire to win and to be the best at any cost. If that was threatened, he could be as stubborn and merciless as a young child. He was just as ruthless with himself, and if his own form wasn’t quite there – it can happen to anyone – he would make up for it with energy and enthusiasm, and sheer effort if necessary. And he wanted the same from everyone else.’^

It was this desire to win, this energy and enthusiasm and these demands on the rest of his team that would dominate the European Cup for its first five years.