Soccer in Sun and Shadow

Samitier

Like Zamora, Josep Samitier made his debut in the first division when he was sixteen. In 1918 he signed with Barcelona in exchange for a watch with a dial that glowed in the dark, something he had never seen, and a suit with a waistcoat.

It wasn’t long before he was the team’s ace and his life story was in kiosks all over the city. His name was on the lips of cabaret singers, bandied about on the stage, and revered in sports columns where they praised the “Mediterranean style” invented by Zamora and Samitier.

Samitier, a striker with a devastating shot, stood out for his cleverness, his domination of the ball, his utter lack of respect for the rules of logic, and his Olympian scorn for the boundaries of space and time.