• Jones dies of coronavirus

Death has been affecting legends of Atlético de Madrid in recent days. After Peiró, Capón and Antic , it was Miguel Jones who left us. Jones was almost an exotic figure. A black footballer in Spanish football from the late 1950s and almost the entire 1960s. An African "Basque" in Madrid, at Atleti, where he met his best moments.

He had been born in colonial Africa in Equatorial Guinea. In Santa Isabel de Fernando Poo (today Malabo) on October 27, 1938. He moved to Spain in 1943 with his parents ( Wilwardo, who had studied in Deusto, and his mother, Susana ) and his six brothers. He studied internally with the Capuchins at the Lekaroz school, in the Navarrese valley of Baztán. And he went on Sundays with his father to San Mamés.

Quick and coordinated, he had innate qualities for sports. For soccer. And athletics. In speed tests and high jump he got school titles . Football claimed it from the team of the Faculty of Economics on Calle Elcano in Bilbao. It caught the attention of Fernando Daucik, who convinced some reluctant parents that the boy neglected the books to at least allow him to train with Athletic, with whose uniform a friend came to play. But he did not stay at the club.

Then there was enough talk of racism to explain that this fast and skillful scorer, a forerunner in a certain way of Iñaki Williams , did not step on the sacred Bilbao grass. He always denied it. "I was not from Biscay. That was it." Williams, on the other hand, was born in Bilbao and, in addition, they are other times.

Daucik

Jones, in 1957, went to Barakaldo, in Second. When the season ended, he signed for Indauxu. In 1959, Daucik, who had not forgotten, brought it to Atlético de Madrid. The team of forwards was formidable: Miguel, Adelardo, Vavá, Mendoza, Peiró, Collar ... With Vavá at the center of the attack, the preferred position of a versatile (winger, midfielder) Jones, the newcomer did not play much in the League. But yes, and very well, in the Cup, a competition only for Spaniards. Atleti lifted the title against Madrid. He would do it again with Jones twice more (1961 and 1965). And also with him he will obtain a League (65-66) and a European Cup Winners' Cup (1962), the first European title for the rojiblancos.

Starting with a veteran Di Stéfano and ending with a young Marcelino, there was a lot of competition for the position of center forward of the national team in those years. Jones was twice shortlisted by José Villalonga in the triumphant trajectory of the 1964 Euro Cup (and for a friendly match). But it did not debut. He left Atleti in 1967 after 129 games and 51 goals. He went to Osasuna for a year and hung up his boots in 1968.

He returned to Madrid, took the coach's title and came to occupy the bench of the regional Atleti . The death of his father returned him to Bilbao, where he served as a commercial agent in the northern area of ​​a Madrid company. After his retirement, he returned to Indautxu to occupy a position on the board for 15 years.

He was a Guinean and did not stay in San Mamés. He was a Guinean and was consecrated forever in the Metropolitan.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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  • Madrid
  • Atlético de Madrid
  • Bilbao
  • Africa
  • Alfredo Di Stéfano
  • Spain
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