I tackled Albert Malo. It was on October 3, 2018, before the surprised photographer Mané Espinosa, that he can prove my words. Albert Malo, 1.90 meters tall and weighing over a hundred kilos, is a legend. He is one of the best players in the history of rugby in Spain. And he is also one of the few Europeans to have competed in a New Zealand team and to have participated in a haka with the veterans of the All Blacks, with whom he played in an exhibition match as one more Maori.
The Earth is not round for him, but oval. Thanks to rugby, he has accumulated enough kilometers to travel dozens of times around the world. He has played in countless countries on five continents with the Spanish team and with his lifelong team, the Unió Esportiva Santboiana. Once, in a tournament in Uruguay, the local public shouted “Brick, brick!” every time he went into action. When the game ended, they explained it to him: “It’s that you’re hard and red as a brick.” And I tackled him, but in a bar…
At home, the Baldiri Aleu stadium in Sant Boi de Llobregat, the cradle of the oval ball in Spain, was the Maxot, the Panotxa or the Pèl-roig. Today, at 59 years of age, his hair has lost its curls, lushness and flaming color, but his eyes fire the same fire. He is still an imposing brick. He has traveled Europe from end to end. He has known the new South Africa and the infamy of apartheid (“don’t be scared: these dogs only attack blacks”, a farmer told him).
The anecdotes of his travels are worth a book. In fact, he is one of our few rugby players with a published biography: Albert Malo, a Catalan in the international rugby elite, by Gloria Lorente. His career did not coincide only with one of the best times of the UE Santboiana, the oldest club in Spain, founded more than a century ago. Also with the best period of the Spanish teams, both the classic one, that of the XV del León, which plays with 15 players, and that of the Sevens, more agile and faster, with only seven. He was a staple in both.
At the age of 35, at an age when many retire, he captained the national team in the first and only Rugby World Cup (men’s) in Spain, which was played in 1999 in Great Britain and France. Voted the best player in numerous international matches, we will never know how far he would have gone if he had succumbed to the siren songs of French and Italian professional teams. But he never wanted to stay away from the sounds of Sant Boi de Llobregat for too long.
A bell is the symbol of this municipality, where he was born and where his parents arrived from Tordellego (Guadalajara). Named favorite son in 2001, he has spread the name of Sant Boi throughout the world. The brotherhood that he forged with players like the long-awaited Hèctor Massoni was his greatest reward. That, and the trips. “With rugby we couldn’t make a living here.”
Spain almost never started as a favorite. Many rivals wanted to win the game before playing it. Albert never gave up, not even against the All Blacks. On November 5, 1988, Spain and New Zealand played a friendly in Seville. At the end of a scrum, the man from Santboiana made a tackle that sent Wayne Shelford down on his ass. Wayne Shelford himself, champion with his country in the first World Cup, in 1987!
In addition to being chosen from Olympus, Shelford was the Chuck Norris of rugby. He didn’t take the tackle well and threw a punch. The Catalan then participated in a “lively exchange of opinions”, in the words of another immense Albert, the journalist and rugby player Albert Turró, author of The third half: everything there is to learn about rugby while drinking a few beers (Saga). Everything was forgotten in the third half, that ritual that honors this sport and that forces the teams to fraternize.
In 1990, he received an irresistible proposal from Freyberg RCF of Palmerston North, of the New Zealand First Division. There the league began in April, when it ended in Spain, and ended in September, when it began here. He accepted because it was a challenge with an expiration date, although the club opened the doors wide for him to stay. He preferred to return to Sant Boi and combined the competition from the southern hemisphere with ours.
On October 3, 2018, the photographer Mané Espinosa and I interviewed him in the cafeteria of the Baldiri Aleu stadium. We talk about the good times. Of joys and sorrows. Of her two daughters, Júlia and Marina, and of the blow that led to the death of the first, at the age of 22. From the love of his life, Rosa. From her family. From his blood brothers, Alfredo and Ana María. And from his club brothers, especially from Hèctor Massoni (1963-2018), whom he cannot remember either without his eyes clouding over.
The goodbyes arrived and that inveterate habit of fighting to be the first and pay the bill. I was foolish enough to try to pay myself. As Albert headed for the box, I tackled him to try to slow him down and gain position. We are almost the same height and I also weigh more than 100 kilos. But my ratio of fat to muscle is, shall we say, different. He pushed me away gently, with an effortless smile. If he wanted to, he would have stepped over me or lifted me up like a feather. And he paid, of course.
This text recasts two web reports from November 27, 2020 and November 12, 2021
