LaLiga: Cruyff, Aragones - football legends to have earned statues in Spain

[caption id=“attachment_10860211” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Johan Cruyff, who played for Barça in the 1970s and returned to coach them between 1988 and 1996, winning four LaLiga titles from the dugout, has left a legacy that permeates the club to this day. Image: LaLiga[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_10860201” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] Atlético de Madrid have a statue of their all-time top goalscorer and four-time coach Luis Aragonés outside the Estadio Wanda Metropolitano, one which was funded by supporters. Image: LaLiga[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_10860181” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] In Bilbao, there are also two monuments to legendary players, one of them to the aforementioned Pichichi. Between 1911 and 1922, Pichichi scored 83 goals in 89 games for Athletic Club, and newspaper MARCA named the award for the league’s top goalscorer in his honour in 1953. The striker was another player who suffered an untimely demise, succumbing to typhus in 1922, and Athletic Club erected a bust of him in 1926, which was transferred to their new stadium in 2013. Image: LaLiga[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_10860171” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] At Espanyol, there is a bronze statue of Dani Jarque, who died of a heart attack in 2009 at 26 years old, only a month after being appointed the club’s captain. The statue is placed at Gate 21 of the stadium, related to the shirt number he sported. Image: LaLiga[/caption] [caption id=“attachment_10860191” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] At Real Sporting de Gijón’s ground of El Molinón, former coach Manolo Preciado is honoured with a statue of him celebrating joyfully. The coach also died of a heart attack in June 2013, the day he had been appointed coach of Villarreal CF, shocking Spanish football. Preciado had helped Real Sporting back to LaLiga in 2008, after a 10-year absence, and was dearly loved there. Image: LaLiga[/caption]