The cat of Odessa, the city that also resisted the conquest of Real Madrid
A Wednesday, 7 March 1973 at six o'clock in the evening. The first leg of the quarter finals of the Champions Cup pitted Miguel Muñoz's Real Madrid against Aleksandr Sevidov's Dynamo Kiev.
Real Madrid were in the midst of a decades-long streak of European unbeaten runs. In 1966 they had won their fifth European Cup and would not do so again until 1998.
The European Cup in those days was played on a knockout basis and entailed a risk that would be unacceptable today. Real Madrid could have missed out on the competition in the round of 32 to Icelandic side Keflavík or in the last 16 to Romanian club Argeș Pitești, or even in the quarter-finals to Soviet side Dynamo Kiev.
The goals of Santillana, Amancio, the defence of Zoco and Benito or the saves of Mariano García Remón kept the team alive in Europe in the late Francoist Spain where, little by little, democracy was coming to the fore.
Franco was the bastion against communism. The United States had entrusted him with this task and the regime took it very seriously. Years earlier, Real Madrid had been banned from playing against any club under the Soviet umbrella, but 1973 and with Leonid Brezhnev in power was another matter. It was years before that 25 December 1991 when the flag of the USSR was finally lowered and that of the Russian Federation was erected.
Real Madrid travelled to the port city of Odessa, in the south of what is now Ukraine, to face Dynamo Kiev in the freezing temperatures of the Ukrainian city. From the Chernomorets stadium, where the match was played, the waters of the Black Sea can be seen. A place chosen by Russian troops in 2022 to bombard Tiraspol with missiles from a submarine.
That cold afternoon in Odessa was an impossible match for Real Madrid. The few images of the time show the cold, but also the saves of García Remón. The Real Madrid goalkeeper who was to become coach for three months in 2004 played the game that evening that earned him the nickname "The Cat of Odessa".
Real Madrid owed the 0-0 draw in the first leg to García Remón. A line-up consisting of José Luis, Zoco, Benito, Touriño, Velázquez, Pirri, Grande, Aguilar, Amancio and Santillana with the changes of Verdugo and González.
Real Madrid's 100th match in Europe will be remembered for the Odessa cat, the cold that the crowd went through, who can be seen in the images with scarves on their heads, and the players' misty faces at the end as can be seen in the video circulating on YouTube of that legendary match.
A fortnight later, the tie arrived at the Bernabéu. At 21:35 Real Madrid came out to take Dynamo Kiev by storm. In the second minute Santillana scored, in the 35th minute Aguilar made it 2-0 and the first goal of his career in Europe and in the 88th minute Amancio sealed a place in the quarter-finals. The summary of that match also offered good saves by García Remón.
Real Madrid would be eliminated by Cruyff's Ajax in the next round and would accumulate another year without winning the European Cup. García Remón remained in goal for Real Madrid until 1986 and Dynamo Kiev would continue to do battle in Europe as a Ukrainian team.
Odessa was also a difficult enclave for Real Madrid to conquer. The city that resisted Russian control in the midst of the invasion of Ukraine has fond memories of a night in March 1973. Much better than the ones it has now.
