Golden Age - Attacking Midfielders
Samitier - His acrobatics and incredible leaps captivated the Barcelona fans, who soon made him their idol and called him the Lobster Man and the Magician.
Samitier also served as technical director of Barca between 1944 and 1947, and then as technical secretary of the Club (a position he held from 1947-59 and 1962-72), when he was responsible for the signing of Kubala in 1950.
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Sastre - The one-man band. As a forward, a midfielder, a defender and even a goalkeeper. El Cuila played in all positions on the pitch and he was brilliant in all of them. He was an idol at Independiente and at San Pablo. Sastre arrived in a Brazilian football when the Campeonato Paulista was dominated by Corinthians and Palmeiras. San Pablo, which had not won the title since 1931, stoically endured the taunts of all its rivals. A popular joke said that "the Tricolor" would be crowned champion the day it tossed a coin in the air and landed upright. Sastre, then, took it upon himself to put the coin on its edge.
"When I arrived at Sao Paulo – Sastre recalled – I couldn't adapt quickly. The press said that the team had bought a bus, which is what they call old trams, rusty iron. We lost the first two games and the coach left. Then Lloreca (new coach) came, I went to talk to him and he let me go directly to the field on Sundays, before lunch. In the first match we played with him, against Portuguesa, we won 9-1 and I scored six goals."
Brazilian coach Osvaldo Brandao in 1967: "Argentines want to copy us Brazilians, but they forget that an Argentinian came to Brazil twenty years ago to teach us football. His name was Antonio Sastre. His football was the seed that later germinated in the soil of Brazil, to turn it into the land of the jogo bonito."
"Without shouting, without gestures, without ever giving the sensation that he commanded and ordered all his teammates. In the middle of those two extremes he 'invented' modern football. The man of the whole field and all the functions. The illustrious ancestor of Alfredo Di Stefano and Johan Cruyff. The creator of total football in Argentina."
