The only footballer who played for Madrid and Atlético at the same time

Today we will analyze a story that turns the protagonist into the only footballer (that we know) who has achieved something similar in Spanish football.

The stories of rivalry among the teams they emerge with the passing of time, except for rare exceptions born as a consequence of divisions in the same parent club, as in the case of Everton Y Liverpool, for example, or those that carry political or religious connotations, like the transfer of the Irish conflict to Scotland, represented by the historical enmity between the Rangers and the Celtic.

This was not the case in Spanish football. An example as clear as atypical is that of the Asturian footballer Luis Belaunde Prendes, born in Gijón the 4 August 1890. His father, was the banker and industrialist Luis Belaunde Costa, owner of the local newspaper “El Noroeste” and related to important families from the Asturian cultural and political world. Belaunde Costa was born in the French town of Saint Cloud, he soon inherited a significant fortune and settled, being a minor, in the city of Gijón, where did his family reside. Your uncle, José Nava Caveda, was his guardian until he came of age. It is, he was in turn nephew of the writer José Caveda y Nava (curious coincidence of name and surname), and he married María Merceces Prendes Busto, Political niece of the writer Armando Palacio Valdés and daughter of the former mayor of Gijón for ten years, Manuel Prendes Hevia.

Belaunde, proceeded, well, of a family with “possible”. He studied at the Inmaculada school in Gijón and in his football-rival team in the early years of Sporting- started kicking his first ball. But nevertheless, he was not the only footballer in the family, his brother Manuel followed in his footsteps. After finishing their high school studies, He continued his training in Switzerland and there continued with the practice of today's "king sport". On his return to Asturias at eighteen, he trained with the reserve team of Sporting Gijon and played at Somió F.C.

Later, about to turn twenty-one, he was part of the Asturian team that faced Madrid on 26 October 1910 and that they defeated the meringues for 0 a 3. The Asturian team was made up of Pola; Luis Valdes, Plácido Álvarez-Buylla, Manuel Vior, Quintana, Celso Arango, Luis Belaunde, Genaro Palace, Salvador Galé, Vicente Álvarez-Buylla and José Olay. The performance of the Asturians does not go unnoticed and four of their footballers were signed by the Athletic Club de Madrid: Belaunde, Arango, Palace and Olay. In the Madrid branch of the Bilbao club, he has other Asturian footballers for companions, two pioneers of Sporting de Gijón: brothers Fernando and Saturnino Villaverde.

Shortly after, his brother Manuel Belaunde would also join the mattress club, ex player, equally, of the Sporting Gijon. His outstanding performances in the Madrid team lead him to play on loan at the Athletic Bilbao, arriving to play official matches with the Basque team. Five seasons in the Madrid rojiblanco team, with the particularity that, in the last, of 1915, he alternated his presence in the line-ups of the mattress set with those of the merengue without much problem. That season he played six official meetings with Athletic Club de Madrid and two with Madrid (when he still did not hold the title of Real). He did it training simultaneously with both teams for a good part of the year.

Sometimes he trained with Madrid in the morning and with Atlético in the afternoon”

With Madrid he debuted in a match against Barcelona Football Club and achieving a triplet (having played a game with the mattress club the day before), in a confrontation that ended with a draw to six goals. His second and last official game wearing the white uniform, It was the final of the cup against Athletic Bilbao that ended with a Basque victory for 4 a 0. The player himself came to declare: “Sometimes he trained with Madrid in the morning and with Atlético in the afternoon”.

Belaunde retired at twenty-seven, after having played six and a half seasons in Madrid, five with the rojiblancos and two with the meringues, proving that five plus two, at least in football, they don't always give seven. Married to the Biscayan Asunción Fernández Montero, natural of Balmaseda, Belauste established his residence in El Escorial, Madrid town, where he passed away 21 April 1962. He will go down in history as the only footballer who wore both jerseys 'at the same time'.