Adolfo Pedernera
Alfredo Di Stéfano's legacy was secured in Spain thanks to his spell running the most successful single team the European Cup/Champions League has ever seen back at the very dawn of its history. What's less well-known is that he had found his way to Spain via Colombia (in an era when the Colombian league operated outside FIFA's rules and was able to attract some of the finest players of the era from all over the world) after only breaking into the team at River Plate at the age of 21.
That's not an old age by any means, but it's not especially young either. Maradona had been playing first team football for six years by the time he turned 21, and most of the greats were already fixtures in their teams by that age. So why did arguably the most complete player in the history of football not break into the first team sooner?
Adolfo Pedernera is the answer. Or rather, the team Pedernera featured in. River Plate won the Argentine championship in 1941, '42 and '45 (there was only one championship per year back then, unlike today), and did so with a side regarded, to this day, as arguably the greatest club team the country has ever seen. Dubbed
La Máquina ('The Machine') by a journalist in 1942, the most famous incarnation of the five-man starting lineup actually only played together eighteen times in four years, and never against bitter rivals Boca Juniors, but the names Ángel Labruna, Félix Loustau, José Manuel Moreno, Juan Carlos Muñoz and Pedernera are etched indelibly into the memories of fans – and not only fans of River. Labruna won nine league titles in all with River and is the Argentine Primera División's second highest scorer of all time (two goals behind Arsenio Erico, who misses out being included in this article because he's Paraguayan), but Pedernera, though he didn't score as many, orchestrated the play.
And it was the play that was the thing for
La Máquina. Because although the goals flowed freely, it was the style that was most important, arguably even more so than winning (three titles in six years from 1941-'46 is hardly domination of Madrid-in-the-early-European-Cup proportions). Pedernera shaped that style, and that's why he's the player who gets picked out from a five-man frontline who could have made up this entire list on their own. When he left River in 1947 to move to Atlanta, Di Stéfano was brought back from loan at Huracán and finally given a place in the team. That's how good Pedernera was; when the time came to replace him, only the best would do.
Alfredo Di Stefano said:
The best player I ever saw in my life, was Adolfo Pedernera. Undoubtedly, Maradona was exceptional, fantastic. The best in years. One can not ignore even Pele. But for heaven’s sake, though it is difficult to draw comparisons, Pedernera was a very complete player who could play anywhere on the pitch.
