Agustín Héctor Castro Rodríguez (29 November 1904 – 15 September 1960) was a

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast, while bordering the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

player and coach. He scored Uruguay's first ever goal in a World Cup against Peru at the inaugural FIFA World Cup in 1930 a tournament they would go on to win.

Early life

Castro was born in

Montevideo Montevideo (, ; ) is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Uruguay, largest city of Uruguay. According to the 2023 census, the city proper has a population of 1,302,954 (about 37.2% of the country's total population) in an area of . M ...

. When he was 13, he accidentally amputated his right forearm while using an electric saw, which gave origin to his nickname, ''El manco'' (meaning "the one-armed", or "the maimed").

Playing career

1933 Uruguayan Championship

In the 1933 Uruguayan Championship,

Peñarol Club Atlético Peñarol (), more commonly referred to as Peñarol, is a Uruguayan professional football club based in Montevideo. The club currently competes in the Uruguayan Primera División, the highest tier in Uruguayan football. The nam ...

player Braulio Castro scored a controversial goal in the championship match where the ball clearly went out of play, but rebounded off a

kinesiologist Kinesiology () is the scientific study of human body movement. Kinesiology addresses physiological, anatomical, biomechanical, pathological Pathology is the study of disease. The word ''pathology'' also refers to the study of disease in ...

's medicine cabinet back into play in the build-up to the goal. This turned out to be the only goal of the game, and the opposition,

Nacional Nacional, the Portuguese and Spanish word for "national", may refer to: Airlines * Nacional Transportes Aéreos, a Brazilian airline defunct in 2002 * Transportes Aéreos Nacional, a Brazilian airline defunct in 1961 Bank * Banco Nacional, a ...

, felt very hard done by, and three of their players were sent off, for assaulting the referee in annoyance at the goal. This meant that the referee, Telésforo Rodríguez, was unable to continue through injury, so one of the assistant referees, Luis Scandroglio, stepped in, and immediately abandoned the match due to bad light, after seventy minutes. Over two months later, on 30 July, the League Board decided to disallow the goal, and also rescinded one of the three aforementioned sendings-off (that of Ulises Chifflet). They also ruled that the final twenty minutes would be played at

Estadio Centenario Centenario Stadium (, ; , named after the Constitution of Uruguay of 1830, centenary of Constitution of Uruguay, Uruguay's Constitution) is an association football stadium in Montevideo, Uruguay. Located in the Parque Batlle, Parque Battle neig ...

, but behind closed doors to try to avoid the same controversy which had plagued the original encounter. The match went ahead behind closed doors, and there were no goals in the twenty minutes. In a highly unorthodox move, two sessions of extra-time were played (the usual allowance would be a single session), the score remained goalless.

's fans remember this game as the "9 contra 11" ("9 against 11") since their team played the remaining 20 minutes plus both overtimes (totalling over 80 minutes) with nine players. A second playoff, which consisted of a standard match, followed once again by two sessions of extra-time, was played on 2 September, but still the deadlock wasn't broken. A third playoff was contested on 18 November, and Héctor Castro played a vital role in this match, scoring a hat-trick which meant twice equalising as well as scoring the winning goal for

, in a 3–2 win over

, which finally settled the Uruguayan Championship, almost six months after the controversial first playoff. This controversial playoff also meant that the Uruguayan Championship of 1933 was bizarrely not awarded until November 1934.

International career

Castro made his debut for the

Uruguay national football team The Uruguay national football team (), nicknamed ''La Celeste'' ("The Sky Blue") and ''Los Charrúas'' ("The Charrúa, Charrúas"), have represented Uruguay in international men's Association football, football since their first international m ...

in November 1923. He played his final match for ''la Celeste'' in August 1935 having played 25 times, scoring 18 goals.

1928 Olympics

Playing for Uruguay at the 1928 Olympic Games Castro won a gold medal.

1930 FIFA World Cup

Castro's goal in the World Cup Final helped Uruguay win the first

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

1930 Events January * January 15 – The Moon moves into its nearest point to Earth, called perigee, at the same time as its fullest phase of the Lunar Cycle. This is the closest moon distance at in recent history, and the next one will be on J ...

. He also scored the first ever goal at Estadio Centenario, against

Peru Peru, officially the Republic of Peru, is a country in western South America. It is bordered in the north by Ecuador and Colombia, in the east by Brazil, in the southeast by Bolivia, in the south by Chile, and in the south and west by the Pac ...

, in that tournament.

South American Championship

Castro played in South American Championship-winning teams in

1926 In Turkey, the year technically contained only 352 days. As Friday, December 18, 1926 ''(Julian Calendar)'' was followed by Saturday, January 1, 1927 '' (Gregorian Calendar)''. 13 days were dropped to make the switch. Turkey thus became the ...

and

1935 Events January * January 7 – Italian premier Benito Mussolini and French Foreign Minister Pierre Laval conclude an agreement, in which each power agrees not to oppose the other's colonial claims. * January 12 – Amelia Earhart ...

International goals

Uruguay's goal tally first

Coaching career

After retiring as a player, Castro worked as a football coach with Nacional. He won the Uruguayan championship in 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, and again in 1952.

Later life and death

Castro died in 1960 at the age of fifty five.

Honours

As a player

As a coach

* Uruguayan Championship: 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1952

As an assistant coach

* Uruguayan Championship: 1939 Castro was assistant coach to William Reaside in 1939 but was coach in the finals for that year's tournament. Therefore, he was Nacional's coach at all five years of the Quinquenio de Oro's closing games.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castro, Hector 1904 births 1930 FIFA World Cup players FIFA World Cup–winning players 1960 deaths Men's association football forwards Olympic footballers for Uruguay Uruguayan men's footballers Uruguayan Primera División players Club Nacional de Football players Uruguay men's international footballers Footballers at the 1928 Summer Olympics Olympic gold medalists for Uruguay Footballers from Montevideo Uruguayan football managers Uruguay national football team managers Uruguayan amputees Olympic medalists in football Copa América–winning players Medalists at the 1928 Summer Olympics Club Nacional de Football managers Association football players with limb difference Rampla Juniors managers 20th-century Uruguayan sportsmen