Juan Monjardín Callejón (24 April 1903 – 13 November 1950) 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 lea ...

who played as a striker. He played for

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

and earned 4 caps for the

Spain national football team The Spain national football team () has represented Spain in men's international Association football, football competitions since 1920. It is governed by the Royal Spanish Football Federation, the governing body for football in Spain. Spain i ...

, competing at the

1924 Summer Olympics The 1924 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the VIII Olympiad () and officially branded as Paris 1924, were an international multi-sport event held in Paris, France. The opening ceremony was held on 5 July, but some competitions had al ...

. A historical member of Real Madrid in the pre-war period, he was the first footballer to play for Madrid for his entire career, and thus be part of the so-called one-club men group.

Club career

Born in

A Coruña A Coruña (; ; also informally called just Coruña; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality in Galicia, Spain. It is Galicia's second largest city, behind Vigo. The city is the provincial capital of the province ...

, he was transferred to

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

as a young man, and began practicing football at the Nuestra Señora del Pilar school, which once was one of the city's football cradles, and from there he entered the training categories of

at the end of the 1918-19 season. In that same season, and despite his early age of just 15, he debuted with the first team in a Central Regional Championship match against

Racing de Madrid Racing Madrid 1914 Fútbol Club (officially Sección de Acción Deportiva Racing Ciudad de Madrid) is a Spanish football league teams, Spanish football team based in Madrid. Founded in 1914, they play in . The club was originally known as Racing C ...

, and he quickly became one of the club's benchmarks at the time. He soon evolved from his position of midfielder to forward, which he no longer gave up until the end of his career. Between the aforementioned Regional Championship and the Copa del Rey, he accumulated a total of 55 goals in 74 games. At the time of his retirement in 1929 (aged 26), he was the second top scorer of the Madrid team, only surpassed by the 68 goals from teammate Santiago Bernabéu. One of the reasons for his early retirement was the arrival of two players who ended up also being attacking and historical references of the club, the Valencian

Gaspar Rubio Gaspar Rubio Meliá (14 December 1907 – 3 January 1983) was a Spanish football forward and coach. Club career Born in Serra, Valencia, Rubio amassed La Liga totals of 61 games and 37 goals over the course of five seasons, representing in th ...

and

Jaime Lazcano Jaime Lazcano Escolá (5 March 1909 – 1 June 1983), was a Spanish professional footballer who played as a midfielder for Real Madrid, Atlético Madrid and Spain during the 1920s and 1930s. He scored the first ever La Liga goal for Real Ma ...

from

Navarra Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...

, both younger than him, and both ended up breaking his goalscoring record at the club. The same season of his retirement La Liga was inaugurated, and by playing only one game, which was also the only one he played that season, he became one of the 19 club players to appear in that historic first edition. In 1943, years after his professional retirement, the white club organized a tribute match in his honour between the people of Madrid and

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

, ending with a one-goal tie.

International career

Being an

Madrid FC Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

player, he was eligible to play for the 'Centro' (Madrid area) representative team, and he was part of the squad that participated in two tournaments of the

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 regio ...

, an inter-regional competition, in 1922–23 and 1923–24, and although the first campaign ended with a shocking quarter-final exit at the hands of Galicia, in which Monjardin scored Madrid's consolation goal in a 1–4 loss, the second campaign was much better, largely thanks to Monjardin as he scored twice in their 2–1 win over a Andalusia XI in the semi-finals, followed by what appeared to have been an

extra-time Overtime (OT) or extra time (ET) is an additional period of play 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 if the game is required t ...

winner against

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: *Final examination or finals, a test given at the end of a course of study or training *Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which d ...

to seal Madrid's second Prince of Asturias Cup title, but a last-minute equaliser from

Emili Sagi-Barba Emilio "Emili" Sagi Liñán (15 March 1900 – 25 May 1951), was a footballer who played as a forward for FC Barcelona. Born in Argentina, he played for the Catalan XI and Spain national teams during the 1920s and 1930s. He was the son of Emili ...

forced a replay in which he scored again, netting twice in the first-half, but his efforts were in vain as Catalonia took the title with a 3–2 win. The silver lining being that with five goals, he was the top goal scorer of the 1923–24 Prince of Asturias Cup, and with a total of six goals in the competition, he is the joint all-time top goalscorer of the Prince of Asturias Cup along with

José Luis Zabala José Luis Zabala (14 December 1898 – 22 April 1946) was a Spanish footballer who played as a forward. He played in four matches for the Spain national football team in 1923 and 1924, scoring four goals, including a hat-trick against Portu ...

and Kinké. He made his debut for the Spain national team in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

on 17 December 1922 against

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

, scoring the winning goal of a 2-1 win in the 82nd minute. In his next cap against

France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...

on 28 January 1923, he scored a brace in a 3-0 win, and coincidentally, the author of the third goal was Zabala. In total, he was capped four times, scoring three goals.

International goals

Goals for Spain

:''Spain score listed first, score column indicates score after each Zabala goal.''

Goals for Madrid

:''Madrid score listed first, score column indicates score after each Monjardín goal.''

Honours

Club

;

Centro Regional Championship: *Winners (6) 1919–20, 1921–22, 1922–23, 1923–24, 1925–26 and 1926–27

International

;Madrid

: *Runner-up (1): 1923-24

Individual

;Madrid *Top goalscorer of the

1923-24 Prince of Asturias Cup Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number) * One of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (1987 film), a 1987 science fiction film * '' 19-Nineteen'', a 2009 South Korean film * '' Dici ...

with 5 goals

Records

*All-time top goal scorer of the

with 6 goals

Death

Monjardín died in a car accident on 13 November 1950.

References

External links

Player profile
at futbol.sportec.es
Player profile
at lfp.es * {{DEFAULTSORT:Monjardin, Juan 1903 births 1950 deaths Spanish men's footballers Spain men's international footballers La Liga players Real Madrid CF players Footballers at the 1924 Summer Olympics Olympic footballers for Spain Footballers from A Coruña Men's association football forwards Footballers from Madrid Road incident deaths in Spain 20th-century Spanish sportsmen