- Wikipedia

{"parse":{"title":"Alfredo Di St\u00e9fano","pageid":615788,"text":{"*":"

For other uses, see Alfredo Di St\u00e9fano (disambiguation).

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Di St\u00e9fano and the second or maternal family name is Laulh\u00e9.

Alfredo Di St\u00e9fano

Di Stefano with Real Madrid in 1959

Personal information

Full name

\nAlfredo St\u00e9fano Di St\u00e9fano Laulh\u00e9^[1]

Date of birth

\n4 July 1926

Place of birth

\nBuenos Aires, Argentina

Date of death

\n7 July 2014 (aged 88)

Place of death

\nMadrid, Spain

Height

\n1.78 m (5 ft 10 in)

Position(s)

\nForward, midfielder

Youth career

1940\u20131943

\nUni\u00f3n Progresista

1944\u20131945

\nRiver Plate

Senior career\"

Years

\nTeam

\nApps

\n(Gls)

1945\u20131949

\nRiver Plate

\n66

\n(49)

1945\u20131946

\n\u2192 Hurac\u00e1n (loan)

\n25

\n(10)

1949\u20131953

\nMillonarios

\n101

\n(90)

1953\u20131964

\nReal Madrid

\n282

\n(216)

1964\u20131966

\nEspanyol

\n47

\n(11)

Total

\n521

\n(376)

International career

1947

\nArgentina

\n6

\n(6)

1951

\nColombia

\n4

\n(0)

1957\u20131961

\nSpain

\n31

\n(23)

Managerial career

1967\u20131968

\nElche

1969\u20131970

1970\u20131974

1974

1975\u20131976

1976\u20131977

1979\u20131980

1981\u20131982

1982\u20131984

1985

1986\u20131988

1990\u20131991

Medal record

\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Men's football\n
\n
Representing $\"\"$ Argentina\n
Copa Am\u00e9rica\n
Winner	1947 Ecuador	\n

\n\"Club domestic league appearances and goals

Alfredo St\u00e9fano Di St\u00e9fano Laulh\u00e9^[2] (Spanish pronunciation: [al\u02c8f\u027ee\u00f0o \u00f0jes\u02c8tefano]; 4 July 1926 \u2013 7 July 2014) was a professional footballer and coach who played as a forward, regarded as one of the greatest footballers of all time.^[3] Nicknamed \"Saeta Rubia\" (\"Blond Arrow\"),^[7] he is best known for his achievements with Real Madrid, where he was instrumental in the club's domination of the European Cup and La Liga during the 1950s and 1960s. Along with Francisco Gento and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Z\u00e1rraga, he was one of only three players to play a part in all five European Cup victories, scoring goals in each of the five finals. Di St\u00e9fano played international football mostly for Spain after moving to Madrid, but he also played for Argentina and Colombia.\n

Di St\u00e9fano began his career at Argentina's River Plate aged 17, in 1943. For the 1946 season he was loaned to Club Atl\u00e9tico Hurac\u00e1n, but he returned to River in 1947. Due to a footballers' strike in Argentina in 1949, Di St\u00e9fano went to play for Millonarios of Bogot\u00e1 in the Colombian league.^[8] He won six league titles during the first 12 years of his career in Argentina and Colombia.^[9]^[10] Following his signing by Real Madrid he was an integral part of one of the most successful teams of all time. He scored 216 league goals in 282 games for Real (then a club record, since surpassed by Ra\u00fal, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema), striking up a successful partnership with Ferenc Pusk\u00e1s. Di St\u00e9fano's 49 goals in 58 matches was the all-time highest tally in the European Cup. The record has since been surpassed by several players, including the aforementioned Real Madrid trio. Di St\u00e9fano scored in five consecutive European Cup finals for Real Madrid between 1956 and 1960, including a hat-trick in the last. Perhaps, the highlight of his time with the club was their 7\u20133 victory over Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 final at Hampden Park, a game many consider to be the finest exhibition of club football ever witnessed in Europe.^[8] He moved to Espanyol in 1964 and played there until retiring at the age of 40.^[10]\n

Di St\u00e9fano was awarded the Ballon d'Or for the European Footballer of the Year in 1957 and 1959.^[9] He is currently the seventh highest scorer in the history of Spain's top division, and Real Madrid's fourth highest league goalscorer of all time. He is Madrid's leading goalscorer in the history of El Cl\u00e1sico, alongside Cristiano Ronaldo.^[11]^[12] In November 2003, to celebrate UEFA's Jubilee, he was selected as the Golden Player of Spain by the Royal Spanish Football Federation as their most outstanding player of the past 50 years.^[13] He was voted fourth, behind Pel\u00e9, Diego Maradona, and Johan Cruyff, in a vote organized by France Football magazine which consulted their former Ballon d'Or winners to elect the Football Player of the Century.^[14] In 2004, he was named by Pel\u00e9 in the FIFA 100 list of the world's greatest living players (in September 2009, he said Di St\u00e9fano was the best player \"ever\").^[15] In 2008 Di St\u00e9fano was honoured by both UEFA and Real Madrid with a special Presidents' award issued by FIFA at a ceremony in Madrid, where a statue was also unveiled. Then UEFA President Michel Platini called Di St\u00e9fano \"a great amongst the greats\" while contemporaries Eus\u00e9bio and Just Fontaine suggested that he was \"the most complete footballer in the history of the game\".^[16]\n

\n\n

Club\n	Season\n	League\n	Cup\n	Continental\n	Total\n
Division	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals	Apps	Goals\n
River Plate\n	1945\n	Argentine Primera Divisi\u00f3n\n	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0\n
Hurac\u00e1n (loan)\n	1946\n	Argentine Primera Divisi\u00f3n\n	25	10	2	0	0	0	27	10\n
River Plate\n	1947\n	Argentine Primera Divisi\u00f3n\n	30	27	0	0	2	1	32	28\n
1948\n	Argentine Primera Divisi\u00f3n\n	23	13	1	1	6	4	30	18\n
1949\n	Argentine Primera Divisi\u00f3n\n	12	9	0	0	0	0	12	9\n
Total\n	66	49	1	1	8	5	75	55\n
Millonarios\n	1949\n	Campeonato Profesional\n	15	15	0	0	0	0	14	14\n
1950\n	Campeonato Profesional\n	29	23	2	1	0	0	31	24\n
1951\n	Campeonato Profesional\n	34	31	0	0	0	0	34	31\n
1952\n	Campeonato Profesional\n	24	19	8	5	0	0	32	24\n
Total\n	102	88	10	6	0	0	111	93\n
Real Madrid\n	1953\u201354\n	La Liga\n	28	27	0	0	0	0	28	27\n
1954\u201355\n	La Liga\n	30	25	0	0	2	0	32	25\n
1955\u201356\n	La Liga\n	30	24	0	0	7	5	37	29\n
1956\u201357\n	La Liga\n	30	31	3	3	10	9	43	43\n
1957\u201358\n	La Liga\n	30	19	7	7	7	10	44	36\n
1958\u201359\n	La Liga\n	28	23	8	5	7	6	43	34\n
1959\u201360\n	La Liga\n	23	12	5	3	6	8	34	23\n
1960\u201361\n	La Liga\n	23	21	9	8	4	1	36	30\n
1961\u201362\n	La Liga\n	23	11	8	4	10	7	41	22\n
1962\u201363\n	La Liga\n	13	12	9	9	2	1	24	22\n
1963\u201364\n	La Liga\n	24	11	1	1	9	5	34	17\n
Total\n	282	216	50	40	64	52	396	308\n
Espanyol\n	1964\u201365\n	La Liga\n	24	7	3	2	0	0	27	9\n
1965\u201366\n	La Liga\n	23	4	4	1	6	0	33	5\n
Total\n	47	11	7	3	6	0	60	14\n
Career total\n	521	373	70	50	78	57	669	480\n

National team	Year	Apps	Goals\n
Argentina\n	1947	6	6\n
Total	6	6\n
Spain\n	1957	7	7\n
1958	4	1\n
1959	5	6\n
1960	8	6\n
1961	7	3\n
Total	31	23\n
Career total\n	37\n	29\n

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Early life

Club career

River Plate

Loaned to Hurac\u00e1n

Return to River Plate 1947\u20131949

Millonarios 1949\u20131953

The disputed transfer to Spain

Real Madrid: The first European triumph

Naturalization and the building of an empire

European decline and the first domestic double

Real Madrid career in numbers

Espanyol

International career

Argentina

Colombia (not-FIFA sanctioned)

Spain

Managerial career

After retirement

Style of play

Death

Personal life

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Player

Manager

Records

See also

References

Further reading

External links

Alfredo Di Stéfano

Media collections