The Copa del Rey 1904 was the second staging of the

Copa del Rey The Campeonato de España–Copa de Su Majestad el Rey, commonly known as Copa del Rey or simply La Copa and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–36) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–76), is an annual knockout footbal ...

, the

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

cup competition. The competition was played in 1904 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

. It was notable for its chaotic development and the fact that

Athletic Bilbao Athletic Club ( eu, Bilboko Athletic Kluba; es, Athletic Club de Bilbao), commonly known as Athletic Bilbao or just Athletic, is a professional Association football, football club based in the city of Bilbao in the Basque Country (autonomous com ...

won the trophy without playing a game.

Details

Originally, three teams were to participate, one for each region. The newly formed Madrid Football Federation, who organized the competition for the first time (the previous tournament was organized by Madrid CF), invited

representing

Biscay Biscay (; eu, Bizkaia ; es, Vizcaya ) is a province of Spain and a historical territory of the Basque Country, heir of the ancient Lordship of Biscay, lying on the south shore of the eponymous bay. The capital and largest city is Bilbao. B ...

and

Espanyol Reial Club Deportiu Espanyol de Barcelona (; "Royal Spanish Sports Club of Barcelona"), commonly known as Espanyol, is a professional sports club based in Barcelona, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish football league sy ...

of Barcelona representing

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was to be represented by the winner of a preliminary round between

Club Español de Madrid Club Español de Madrid was a Spanish football club based in Madrid. The club was originally formed in 1901 after a conflict between Sky Football members caused some of them to leave and create a new club. Español de Madrid collapsed in the summ ...

and Madrid-Moderno (a merger of Madrid CF and Moderno). The three teams were to contest the cup in a round-robin format. Before the tournament, Espanyol, unhappy with the competition system, announced they would not travel to Madrid. Then two more teams from Madrid, Moncloa FC and , were admitted into the competition, forcing a change to the schedule. As a result, the four Madrid teams were scheduled to play a single-elimination tournament to decide their representative for the Copa del Rey final against the automatically qualified Athletic Bilbao. The competition started on 13 March 1904, but on 19 March the first problems arose: the semi-final qualifying match between Club Español de Madrid and Madrid-Moderno ended in 5–5 draw. The

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of both teams agreed not to play

extra-time Overtime or extra time is an additional period of play specified under the rules of a sport to bring a game to a decision and avoid declaring the match a tie or draw where the scores are the same. In some sports, this extra period is played only ...

, but failed to reach an agreement on when they should replay the match. Español wanted to play the next day, but Madrid-Moderno refused, citing the rules of the tournament which stated that a replay could not be played less than 48 hours after the previous game. The next day, Club Español, went to replay the match, but Madrid-Moderno failed to appear. The regional federation, whose president

Ceferino Avecilla Ceferino Rodríguez Alonso de Avecilla (14 December 1880 – 1956) was a Spanish writer, dramatist, sports journalist and football executive. A prolific and restless journalist, Avecilla wrote countless chronicles about the most important issues ...

also happened to be president of Español de Madrid, ruled in favour of Español, and they were declared winners on default. While the Cup final was originally scheduled for 26 March, the inclusion of Moncloa and Iberia into the tournament at the last minute necessitated an extra qualifying game and delayed the final. On 27 March, Español and Moncloa faced one another, and Español were winning 1–0 when their defender Hermúa was injured, being diagnosed with a broken tibia and fibula. The referee then suspended the match, at which point Español claimed the victory. During a meeting of the Madrid Association of Foot-ball Clubs, the president of the organization, Avecilla, proposed to accept this claim, but as he was also the chairman of the claimant club, his proposal was rejected. To resolve this conflict, a lottery was held, which favoured Español, and named them as finalists. But Español had not won their regional games: they had tied one game (winning the replay after their opponent failed to appear) and the other had been abandoned, which led Athletic to lodge a formal complaint. For various reasons, the Madrid Association were unable to quickly resolve the matter, and also faced a rush of players from the Basque club to return to their occupations: the Association decided to scratch the final and award the cup to Athletic as defending champions.

Madrid Qualifying Tournament

Semi-finals

The replay was scratched and Español declared winners as Moderno failed to appear.

Final

The match was abandoned at 1–0 due to a serious player injury; Español were declared winners.

Copa del Rey Final

The qualification of Español was disputed; after much deliberation, and due to logisticial and various other issues, the Final was scratched and Athletic (who were not required to qualify) were awarded the Cup.

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Copa Del Rey 1904 1904 1904 domestic association football cups 1903–04 in Spanish football