Francisco Gento

Francisco Gento López (born 21 October 1933), usually referred as Paco Gento, is a former Spanish football player, who played as a left winger.

Paco Gento

Gento with Real Madrid in 1967
Personal information
Full name	Francisco Gento López
Date of birth	21 October 1933
Place of birth	Guarnizo, El Astillero, Spain
Position(s)	Outside-left
Youth career
	S.D. Nueva Montaña
	Union Club Astillero
	Rayo Cantabria
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1952–1953	Racing Santander	10	(2)
1953–1971	Real Madrid	428	(128)
Total		438	(130)
National team
1956	Spain B	1	(0)
1955–1969	Spain	43	(5)
Teams managed
	Real Madrid Castilla
1974	Castellón
1977–1980	Palencia
1980–1981	Granada
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Paco Gento in 1965

Gento, Leo Horn, Alfredo Di Stéfano and Faas Wilkes in 1959

Gento began his career at Racing Santander in 1952 and moved to Real Madrid the following season. He appeared in a joint record eight European Cup finals, winning a record six, as well as winning 12 La Liga titles.

In a 14-year international career, Gento earned 43 caps for Spain, playing at the World Cup in 1962 and 1966.

Following the death of Alfredo Di Stéfano, Gento was appointed as the Honorary President of Real Madrid.[1]

Career

He débuted in the Primera División with Racing Santander in the 1952–53 season. In the following year, he signed with Real Madrid and became a legendary player of that club, wearing the number 11 shirt.

La Galerna del Cantábrico (The Gale of the Cantabrian Sea), as he was known, played outside-left and was noted for his skills with the ball and his scoring prowess from the midfield position. He captained a young side, known in Spain as Ye-yé, because of the popularity of The Beatles at that time. He is regarded as one of Spain's greatest players.

Among other honors, Gento won the European Cup a record 6 times with Real Madrid (an unmatched record), scoring 30 goals in 89 European Cup career matches. He also played for Spain from 1955 to 1969, winning 43 caps and scoring 5 times.

Gento played in eight European Cup finals (6–2 record) (with a ninth European final appearance in the 1970–1971 Cup Winners' Cup final that Real Madrid lost to Chelsea). He holds this record jointly with Milan's Paolo Maldini (with an inferior 5–3 record). Gento's legendary Real Madrid teammate, Alfredo Di Stéfano (5–2 record) comes third with 7.

After he retired from football in 1971, he decided to take up coaching. He took charge of various lower-league teams, such as Castilla, Castellón, Palencia, and Granada. In the end, he accepted a post working as an ambassador for Real Madrid throughout Europe.

Personal life

Gento's two younger brothers, Julio (1939–2016) and Antonio (1940–2020) also played football professionally; the latter played for Real Madrid, too, but they were not as successful as their older brother Francisco.

His nephews were also athletes – José Luis Llorente and Toñín Llorente played basketball, whilst Paco Llorente and Julio Llorente were footballers.[2] Grand-nephew Marcos Llorente, son of Paco Llorente, is also a footballer.[3]

Style of play

Regarded as one of the greatest Spanish players of all time and one of the greatest ever players in his position, Gento was an extremely fast left-winger, with excellent vision and technical ability, which made him an effective assist provider. In addition to his control and creative ability, he was also a goalscoring threat due to his striking ability from distance.[4][5]

Career statistics

Club

Club	Season	Division	League		Copa del Rey		Europe		Total
			Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals
Racing Santander	1952–53	Primera División	10	2	4	0	0	0	14	2
Real Madrid	1953–54	Primera División	17	0	4	0	0	0	21	0
	1954–55		24	6	3	0	0	0	27	6
	1955–56		29	7	6	3	7	1	42	11
	1956–57		27	7	2	0	8	1	37	8
	1957–58		28	7	5	1	6	3	39	12
	1958–59		21	7	5	2	8	1	34	10
	1959–60		27	14	6	3	6	2	38	18
	1960–61		28	9	8	3	2	1	38	13
	1961–62		25	6	9	4	10	2	44	12
	1962–63		25	7	4	1	2	1	31	9
	1963–64		24	12	2	0	9	3	35	15
	1964–65		23	4	3	0	6	5	32	9
	1965–66		28	10	3	3	9	3	40	15
	1966–67		20	11	5	0	4	0	29	11
	1967–68		24	8	0	0	7	5	31	13
	1968–69		26	8	2	1	2	0	30	9
	1969–70		25	3	5	1	3	2	33	6
	1970–71		7	0	2	0	6	0	15	0
	Total		428	128	74	22	95	30	606	178
Career total			438	130	78	22	95	30	620	180

International goals

#	Date	Venue	Opponent	Score	Result	Competition
1	14 October 1959	Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain	Poland	3–0	3–0	1960 European Nations' Cup qualifying
2	2 April 1961	Santiago Bernabéu, Madrid, Spain	France	2–0	2–0	International Friendly
3	30 October 1963	Windsor Park, Belfast, Northern Ireland	Northern Ireland	0–1	0–1	1964 European Nations' Cup qualifying
4	23 June 1966	Riazor, A Coruña, Spain	Uruguay	1–1	1–1	International Friendly
5	31 May 1967	San Mamés, Bilbao, Spain	Turkey	2–0	2–0	UEFA Euro 1968 qualifying

Honours

Real Madrid before the 1966 European Cup Final against FK Partizan

Real Madrid

• La Liga (12): 1953–54, 1954–55, 1956–57, 1957–58, 1960–61, 1961–62, 1962–63, 1963–64, 1964–65, 1966–67, 1967–68, 1968–69
• Copa del Rey (2): 1961–62, 1969–70
• European Cup (6): 1955–56, 1956–57, 1957–58, 1958–59, 1959–60, 1965–66
• Intercontinental Cup (1): 1960
• Small Club World Cup (1): 1956
• Latin Cup (2): 1955, 1957

Individual

• World Soccer World XI: 1960, 1961, 1962[6]
• Golden Foot Legends Award: 2004[7]
• World Soccer: The 100 Greatest Footballers of All Time
• IFFHS Legends[8]

Records

• Most La Liga titles: 12
• Most European Cup titles: 6[9]
• Most European Cup final appearances: 8 (tied with Paolo Maldini)[10]
• Most major trophies with Real Madrid: 24

References

1. "Paco Gento, Honorary President of Real Madrid". 23 October 2016.
2. AS, Diario (10 January 2003). "Fallece María Antonia Gento, madre de la saga Llorente". AS.com.
3. AS, Diario (17 October 2015). "Real Madrid - Levante: Debutó con el Madrid Marcos Llorente, sobrino-nieto de Gento". AS.com.
4. "Full-throttle Paco, Real's winning legend". FIFA.com. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
5. "Francisco "Paco" Gento" (in Italian). Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
6. "ERIC BATTY’S WORLD XI – THE SIXTIES" Retrieved on 29 November 2015
7. "Legends". Golden Foot. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 23 September 2015.
8. "IFFHS announce the 48 football legend players". IFFHS. 25 January 2016. Retrieved 14 September 2016.
9. Saffer, Paul (18 May 2016). "Reyes's fifth win: top UEFA club _{cup winner}s". UEFA. Retrieved 19 May 2016.
10. "Champions League final records and statistics". UEFA. 1 June 2019. Retrieved 5 October 2019.

External links

• Francisco Gento – FIFA competition record
• Francisco Gento at BDFutbol
• Francisco Gento at National-Football-Teams.com
• Francisco Gento at Real Madrid (in English and Spanish)
• Biography at Real Madrid Fans (in Spanish)
• National team data (in Spanish)
• International Appearances and Goals at RSSSF
• Goals in European Cups at RSSSF