And who the hell was that Lora?, many of you will ask…Well, it is a historic Sevilla player who, to the surprise of locals and strangers, entered the list of those called up for the Spanish team led by Ladislao Kubala -the then popularly known as ‘Kubala Boys’-, with a view to their second commitment, after the inconsequential defeat of Finland in La Línea de la Concepción, in October 1969. A friendly match had been arranged against the national team of the RFA , at the time current runner-up in the World Cup, and this was going to take place on February 11, 1970 at the Sánchez Pizjuán stadium, where the footballer usually played. The big surprise on the list was called Enrique Lora Millan, and was a native of the Sevillian town of La Puebla del Río, where he was born on May 7, 1945, in the middle of the post-war period. From a humble background, he had to start working in the fields from a very young agebut fortunately for him the round ball would take him out of a very predictable and not very splendid future, although it was not exactly going to save him any sweat…
And Lora can be considered as the paradigm of the footballer-worker, or in his case a day laborer. The most popular of sports imitates life, since it is still a representative microcosm of Society, and in a team there are higher classes, whether they are called leaders, architects or engineers (or managers, as the Chilean Carlos Caszely said), and others. who do the dirty work, laborers, gregarious people who run and work tirelessly for 90 minutes – and also those for tips -, with the sole and sacrificial mission that their own artists shine, and their rivals fail in their efforts. . Are stakhanovists of the ball, who soak the shirt with their honest proletarian sweatand who also tend to earn much less than the stars. But fortunately sometimes – not always, unfortunately – justice is done to them.
And he could have been Betic…
Your first important team is going to be Coriabut in 1975, at the end of his contract, he was about to become a player of the Betis. But a problem arose, and that is that the green and white club offered him 30,000 pesetas, but in a bank check, and Lora did not trust him and wanted the steamy cash. They agreed that he would come back the next day, but that’s when the Sevilla. And since a bird in the hand is worth more than a hundred in the bush, the one from La Puebla signed his name in exchange for 25,000 covesbut in cash and on the spot, to deliver them at home by the very fact. He spent the 65-66 season in the reserve team, Sevilla Atlético, and at the start of the following campaign, Sevilla coach Sabino Barinaga made him debut with the first team against Granada, at the Sánchez Pìzjuán. And very rarely would he fall out of the lineup anymore.
Its early days are grey, rather on the black side.. He almost always appears in the starting eleven, playing as a winger or interior, preferably on the right, but Sevilla goes from bad to worse. At the end of the 66-67 season he barely escaped relegation, beating Sporting from Gijón in promotion, but in the following season he plunged into the abyss, going hand in hand with his not always cordial Betic enemy.
Fortunately they are promoted first time, and with the arrival of a new coach, the Austrian Max Merkel, Lora’s great opportunity is going to arrive. Merkel, Mister Whipturns him into an all-rounder, a current sacrificed and inexhaustible that does not rest throughout the game, a sevenlungs, the soul of a team that in that 69-70 season will be the true revelation of the championship, climbing to third place. Lora, at 1.62 meters tall, is a bull, thanks to the double training sessions prescribed by the Central European coach, and Kubala will call him up, to the surprise of many. It was said and written that he only played so that the coach would look good in front of the public, because the match was played in Seville, but his omnipresent performance against the German phenomena -Libuda, Grabowski, Netzer, Uwe Seeler, Torpedo Muller…-, silenced all the critical mouths. He was certainly not a stylist, but he did a priceless job perfectly..
Merkel, whom Lora has always considered her best coach, said of him that he was “a player with all his heart, with generosity and humility, and an example for his teammates.” And also for Kubala he will be indisputable for several seasons, until completing 14 presences in the National Team, with a goal against the modest Cypriots in Los Cármenes. With Sevilla he will experience a new relegation at the end of 71-72, and this time the stay in the hole will be longer, three years, always with Lora on the team. But as he entered his thirties, his role gradually diminished, and in 1977 the board chaired by Montes Cabeza dismissed him, after eleven seasons of invaluable services to the white and red cause, with 335 official matches and 27 goals.
In the Recreation
Angry with his Sevilla, and willing to show that he still had a lot of football left in his seven-league boots, Lora is going to sign for him. Huelva Recreational, the Dean of Spanish football. Directed by Eusebio Ríos, the former Betis centre-back, that Recre had in its ranks people like Isabelo, the mustachioed Sivianes, the Uruguayan Víctor Escárrago, Joaquín or the future pichichi Poli Corner, with the former international playing almost everything, and he is going to get his first promotion. Lora will be in the Dean’s debut in the highest category, which will provisionally lead in the first two days, although then things will not go so well, and at the end of that 78-79 season they will return to Second, a moment that the hard-working all-rounder from Puebla del Río for saying goodbye to football, at 34 years old and still being an important piece in the Huelva team.
And as he has always been a country man, once retired he has led a simple and quiet life. Taking care of take care of your garden and your animals, and going daily to the Seviillsta club in his town, to have a beer and play dominoes with friends. In 2014, Sevilla finally recognized his great merits, and named him ‘Legend Number’, the distinction with which the Nervión club remembers those who served it so much and so unconditionally. AND Lora, a football journeyman, always gave everything for those colors, from his generous humility.
2024-02-18 09:53:49
#Lora #Kubalas #day #laborer
