Enrique Larrinaga Esnal (; 20 June 1910 – 8 May 1993) 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 ...

from

Sestao Sestao is a town and municipality of 27,296 inhabitants located in the province of Biscay, in the autonomous community of Basque Country, northern Spain. It is in the left bank of the Estuary of Bilbao and part of Bilbao's metropolitan area. Se ...

in the Basque Country who played as a

midfielder In the sport of association football, a midfielder takes an Glossary of association football terms#O, outfield position primarily in the middle of the pitch. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in t ...

Personal life

Larrinaga was born in Sestao in the Basque Country in 1910, but at the age of seven he moved with his family to

Basauri Basauri is a major municipality of Biscay, in the Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country, an Autonomous Community in northern Spain. The town is a part of the Greater Bilbao conurbation, being only a few kilometers south of Bilbao. ...

. In 1939 he settled in

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

, where he married Yolanda Aspiazu Suarez with whom he adopted a son called José Manuel.

Football career

Larrinaga started his playing career at Basconia, where he played two seasons, before moving to

Racing Santander Real Racing Club de Santander, S.A.D. (), also known as Racing de Santander () or simply Racing, is a football club based in Santander, Cantabria, Spain, that currently competes in Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league system ...

for the inaugural season of

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

in 1928. He usually played as a left midfielder. While at Racing the team's greatest success was coming runners up in the 1930/31 season in La Liga. With the out-break of the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War () was a military conflict fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republican faction (Spanish Civil War), Republicans and the Nationalist faction (Spanish Civil War), Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the Left-wing p ...

in 1936 the national football leagues in Spain were put on hold. In the Basque Country a national team was selected to travel abroad to raise money to look after refugees fleeing the civil war and also to let the world know that there was a

Basque government The Basque Government (, ; ) is the governing body of the Basque Autonomous Community of Spain. The head of the Basque government is known as the '' Lehendakari''. The Lehendakari is appointed by the Basque Parliament every four years, after a re ...

trying to resist the attack of the fascist rebels. Larrinaga was selected for this team. First they toured Europe, playing in France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Norway and Denmark. They had great success but in the summer of 1937 the Basque Country was captured by the fascist army and so the team had to make a choice. Two players returned to Spain, but the rest decided to stick together and travel to

to continue the tour there. Due to the ongoing civil war in Spain

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

decided in 1938 to prohibit any FIFA affiliated teams from playing the Basque National team, insisting that the players could only continue to play together as a team if they joined a league. As they all still wanted to stay together the team became a club called Club Deportivo Euzkadi that participated in the

Primera Fuerza Campeonato de Primera Fuerza (), later known as Liga Mayor (), was an amateur association football league in Mexico. It was founded and organized by the Federación Mexicana de Football Asociación (), which was the first governing body of Mexic ...

league in Mexico during the 1938/39 season. At the end of that year the members of the team decided to go their separate ways, and so Larrinaga joined a Mexican side called Club Asturias along with two others from the Basque team. In 1942 he made his final move as a player when he joined another Mexican team called Club España.

Other work

After retiring from football he worked for two companies called Homeopática Intregral and Corvamex.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Larrinaga, Enrique 1910 births 1993 deaths Footballers from Biscay Men's association football midfielders La Liga players Expatriate men's footballers in Mexico Spain men's international footballers Spanish expatriate men's footballers Spanish men's footballers Racing de Santander players Real Club España footballers CD Basconia footballers Liga MX players Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Mexico Spanish emigrants to Mexico Basque Country men's international footballers People from Basauri 20th-century Spanish sportsmen