The impact of Di Stefano

"Who is this man?" He takes the ball from the goalkeeper; he tells the full-backs what to do; wherever he is on the field he is in position to take the ball; you can see his influence on everything that is happening... I had never seen such a complete footballer.
"It was as though he had set up his own command centre at the heart of the game. He was as strong as he was subtle. The combination of qualities was mesmerising."

- Sir Bobby Charlton, Man United and England legend

"The greatness of Di Stefano was that having him in the team meant we had two players for each position."

- Miguel Muñoz, former Real Madrid & Spain player and manager


These are two of the quotes published after the passing of Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano earlier this week. The event also reminded me that my dad always used say he was the best player he'd ever seen. I always thought it was a heavily biased statement considering my old man was himself a Madrid fan; I found it very hard to believe there might have been anyone better than Maradona. But seeing as many Spanish media outlets and the club istelf made the same claim after his passing this week, I decided to look into his record to see exactly what impact he'd had.

If Di Stefano is denied greater recognition, it is quite likely due to his lack of impact on international football. Before his move to Spain, he played just 6 games for Argentina, scoring 6 times en route to the 1947 Copa America title. Argentina, however, withdrew from the 1950 and 1954 World Cups, denying him the opportunity to play in those tournaments. As a Spanish national, he was part of Spain's failure to qualify for the 1958 World Cup, perhaps the only blemish on his CV. They did qualify for 1962, but Di Stefano was ruled out due to an injury sustained in a friendly immediately before the tournament. As a result, di Stefano never got to play a single World Cup game in his career.

However, it would be difficult to find a single player to have made a bigger mark on club football.

Received knowledge tells us that Real Madrid were always Franco's team, meaning that his exploits there could be waved away as part of a concerted state effort. Closer scrutiny paints a different picture though.

Before he signed in 1953, Madrid had not won a single league title since Franco's rise to power 14 years earlier. In fact, they'd only twice been runners up. The honours list in those years read:
Barcelona 5 titles
Atletico Madrid 4
Valencia 3
Sevilla 1
Athletic Bilbao 1

As regards the overall count, it read
Barcelona 6 titles
Ath Bilbao 5
Atletico 4
Valencia 3
Real Madrid 2 (both dating back to the pre-war Second Republic years).

With Di Stefano in their ranks, Real Madrid won the league at their first attempt, their first title in 21 years and first of 8 league in 11 seasons. They also reached 7 European Cup finals, including their famous 5 in a row, their 2 defeats coming in '62 and '64, when Di Stefano 36 and 38 years old respectively.

In each of those five victorious finals, Di Stefano was on the scoresheet. He was also top Liga scorer 5 times.

But focusing solely on his goalscoring exploits, however impressive, would be paying a disservice to the footballer. Perhaps more importantly, many of his contemporaries labelled Di Stefano "the complete footballer". The quotes at the top of this article are but two examples, but by all accounts, fewer players have ever made such an impact on how football was played in Europe.

More on Di Stefano from Tim Vickery:
Alfredo Di Stefano: 'The most influential footballer ever'
http://www.bbc.com/sport/0/football/28179414