On this day, 28 years ago, the beginning of the curse of Real Madrid in Tenerife, where the local team starred in an incredible comeback after lifting an adverse 0-2 and ending up winning 3-2. What happened 28 years ago to the white team on the island was terrible. On a very hot afternoon of June 7, 1992, the white team lost on the last day a league that was practically in his pocket and that finally went to the showcases of the Johan Cruyff's Barça.
Real Madrid started in the game that closed the 1991-92 championship with a point advantage over FC Barcelona. The Catalans beat 2-0 to a Athletic located in the lower middle of the table and without gambling, just like the Tenerife by Jorge Valdano, who had been saved from rest the previous day in Gijón.
However, the cicadas, in a meeting involved in suspicions by famous third party bonuses, they put all the meat on the grill at Heliodoro and gave Barcelona one of the greatest joys in its history in an unforgettable season for Barça, who had conquered just two weeks before his first european cup after beating Sampdoria in Wembley.
Tenerife received a bonus for winning
Tenerife players received a controversial bonus for winning in that famous game that cost the title to the white club, as recognized by members of the Canarian squad. Manolo Hierro, he was on sick leave from football due to long illness, he declared on October 26, 1992, in the Lar El Larguero ’program, by Cadena SER, that after that match, the team captain, Toño Hernández, informed them that he had received an amount of money – encrypted in about 21 million pesetas– for its distribution among 21 players, the masseur, the physiotherapist, the utillero and the doctor of the chicharrero club as a prize for the victory. Valdano, who went on to say that “it is not so serious to receive an award for having won” and his second, Angel CappaThey stayed on the sidelines.
Money delivered in a plastic bag
The scandal was huge. Manolo Hierro said that the one who paid them to squash the title to the meringues “must have been someone from Catalonia or an anti-Madridista.” Toño admitted the facts in the same radio broadcast, although neither he nor Manolo Hierro directly related Barça with the controversial economic incentive. Both did not implicate any club or any natural person as the person directly responsible for the payment. Toño limited himself to ensuring that at the gates of Heliodoro Rodríguez, “an unknown man between the ages of 30 and 40 handed us a return of a plastic bag that was approaching 21 million pesetas ” for beating Real Madrid in the last game of the League 91-92 and also commented not having asked his interlocutor where the money came from. As reported by SER in its day, the one who paid the premium was a former player of Barcelona.
For his part, the Real Madrid former guard Agustin, who defended Tenerife's goal only the first 24 minutes after being replaced by injury, denied having charged the aforementioned premium. In an interview with the newspaper ‘El Mundo’, Quique Estebaranz, one of the match's scorers, said sarcastically that “if it is true that there were briefcases, I am still looking for the one who kept my share”, while Pier, the one who propped up Madrid, He assured the same newspaper that “I didn't even know if there was anything, he was the youngest. I don't even know if it's true. At least I didn't take anything, ”he sentenced.
The case was closed due to lack of evidence
Johan Cruyff, then Barça coach, said with unquestionable good humor that it was “impossible for a Catalan, with the stingy people who are Catalans, to pay that amount of money”. For his part, the Real Madrid player Míchel He assured that “before playing we already knew that Tenerife was in the prime and that was how it looked on the pitch.” The case was closed by the Competition Committee of the Spanish Football Federation, which summoned Manolo Hierro and Captain Toño to testify, due to lack of evidence and the plastic bag with the money, forgotten.
Shot to the post of Hagi and legal goal annulled to Milla
It seemed unthinkable that after going ahead 0-2 in Tenerife with relative ease, thanks to a header by Fernando Hierro (8 ’) and a Romanian Gica Hagi's masterful free kick (28 ’), Real Madrid would be left without singing the song. In the second part, the meringues were able to sentence. Hagi crashed a ball into the post, Butragueño he missed up to three goals scored and Garcia de Loza annulled, at the request of one of his line judges, a legal goal to Luis Milla, who was in the correct position, and who surprisingly hardly protested the Madrid players. But the Canarian team never gave up and turned the tortilla around when the meringues were already savoring the title.
Rocha's own goal and Pier's goal, lethal
With 1-2 on the scoreboard, after Quique Estebaranz he would have scored near the break (36 ’), two new claws from the islanders in the final stretch of the eye crash, when the whites had stayed with ten for the Villarroya's just expulsion after an unnecessary entry on Chano, they sank Madrid, first with a Ricardo Rocha's own goal in 77 'that marked the Brazilian's career and just a minute later with a goal from Pierluigi Cherubino after the ball fell on his feet in an action in which a scorching sun could blind Paco Buyo, although he wore a white cap, when trying to take out a reckless transfer of his partner Sanchís, although the Galician goal, which curiously was done with the ‘Ricardo Zamora’ awardAs the least goalscored goalkeeper in the championship, he was very unfortunate in Tenerife's three goals in that game in which Real experienced one of the blackest chapters in its long history.
Beenhakker failed to improve Antic, fired as leader
Tenerife went from being a stone guest to a Madrid executioner who in that season came to have an eight-point advantage over Barça on matchday 14 (then the victory was rewarded with two points). The coach was Radomir Antic, but Ramon Mendoza he fired him as a leader. As the days went by, his successor, Leo Beenhakker, not only did the team not play better, but it worsened the Balkan's numbers. He made eight fewer points than Antic added in the first round.
The referee García de Loza was injured but could continue
Madrid crashed in Tenerife and lost the League in an incredible way in an unusual game in which Collegiate Raúl García de Loza was injured. The Galician suffered a ligament strain in one knee, but endured the entire match despite the pain after the island team doctor applied a strong elastic bandage.
With the match already finished at Camp Nou, the Barça players, including a very young Pep Guardiola, fans and managers remained glued to the transistor, waiting with great nervousness for the duel to end. Tenerife, where the match lasted until minute 96.
After the final whistle, the meringues players went blindly into the locker room without understanding how they had been able to pass up the opportunity to achieve the League title, while the Catalans, champions by a single point, went mad with the unexpected madridista bump and celebrated in style an unforgettable double (League / European Cup) in the magic 1992 for Barcelona.
Núñez ended up dancing the conga at the culé party
It was also for history when the then president of Barça, Josep Lluís Núñez, already at the night party at the Princesa Sofía hotel, he could dance the conga, while the players overflowed with the pasodoble 'Canary Islands' and singing ‘The Puerta de Alcalá’. Everyone chanted “Look at her, look at her.” Guardiola, one of those who took the baton at the wild party, sang the famous song in a disco ‘New York, New York’ by Frank Sinatra.
CD Tenerife, 3: Agustín (Manolo, min. 24); Toño, Toni, Mata, Paqui, Redondo, Quique Estebaranz, Rafa Berges (Pier, min. 64), Chano, Felipe and Pizzi.
Real Madrid, 2: Buyo; Chendo, Rocha, Sanchís, Villarroya, Míchel, Hierro, Milla, Hagi (Lasa, min. 73), Butragueño and Alfonso (Luis Enrique, min. 59)
Goals: 0-1, Hierro (min. 8); 0-2, Hagi (min. 28); 1-2, Quique Estebaranz (min. 36); 2-2, Rocha, in own goal (min. 77); 3-2, Pier (min. 78)
Referee: Raúl García de Loza (Colegio Gallego). He showed a yellow card to Toño, Alfonso, Rocha, Míchel and Sanchís. He expelled Villarroya (min. 69) and Pier (min. 90) with a double warning.
Incidents: Full at the Heliodoro Rodríguez López (22,000 spectators). Local fans celebrated the Barça title as their own.