Saturno Villaverde Lavandera (29 February 1892 - Unknown), nicknamed Saturnino and also known as Villaverde II, was a Spanish
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
who played as a
forward for
Athletic Club de Madrid. His brothers,
Fernando
Fernando is a Spanish and Portuguese given name and a surname common in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, former Spanish or Portuguese colonies in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka. It is equivalent to the G ...
and
Senén, were also footballers and also played for Athletic Madrid.
Biography
He joined Athletic in 1914, featuring alongside the likes of
Pagaza,
Juan de Cárcer and his brothers,
Fernando
Fernando is a Spanish and Portuguese given name and a surname common in Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, Switzerland, former Spanish or Portuguese colonies in Latin America, Africa, the Philippines, India, and Sri Lanka. It is equivalent to the G ...
and
Senén, who joined in 1915, but while they left in 1916 and 1917 respectively, he stayed with the club, and in 1917, he was summoned to play for the
Madrid national team in the
1917 Prince of Asturias Cup, an inter-regional
competition
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indiv ...
organized by the
RFEF. Saturno was the star of the tournament, being the top scorer with 3 goals – a brace against
Catalonia
Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a '' nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy.
Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the nort ...
in a 2–2 draw and the winner against
Cantabric in a 3–2 win – thus going from an utter unknown of the masses to the tournament's surprise package and a loved hero in Madrid. Remarkably, in the game against Cantabric, the Villaverde brothers were rivals, as Fernando and Senén were representing the Cantabrians. However, his excellent campaign at the tournament almost did not happen, since initially, Saturno was not even in the radar of the dirigents to be called up for the Madrid team, but because the tournament coincided with the
1917 Copa del Rey Final between
Madrid FC and
Arenas, which prevented them from having the best players of Madrid FC, meaning they had to call the "second options" (players from
Athletic Madrid and
Racing de Madrid) to put together a team which could compete, and despite being a weaker side than in the previous tournament, they managed to win what the "first options" had failed to.
Honours
International
;
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
*
Prince of Asturias Cup
The Prince of Asturias Cup (, ) was an inter-regional football competition contested by the regional selections of Spain – selections of players from clubs from the region in question, meaning that players did not need to be native to the region ...
:
**Champions (1):
1917
Events
Below, the events of World War I have the "WWI" prefix.
January
* January 9 – WWI – Battle of Rafa: The last substantial Ottoman Army garrison on the Sinai Peninsula is captured by the Egyptian Expeditionary Fo ...
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Villaverde, Saturno
Year of death missing
Spanish men's footballers
Men's association football forwards
Footballers from Gijón
1892 births
Atlético Madrid footballers