1918 Copa del Rey final

1918 Copa del Rey final
The 1918 Copa del Rey Final was an association football match between Real Unión and Madrid FC on May 12, 1918 at the O'Donnell Stadium in Madrid. It was the deciding match of the Spanish cup competition, the Copa del Rey. Real Unión beat Madrid FC 2–0 to win their first title (second title counting the trophy won by Racing de Irun in 1913). Unión's captain, forward Juan Legarreta, scored both goals.
Route to the final
The Copa del Rey is an annual single-elimination tournament which at the time, before the formation of the national league, consisted of the winners of Spain's eight regional leagues. Real Unión Club and Madrid FC had qualified to the 16th edition of the Copa del Rey as champions of the North Regional Championship and Central Regional Championship, respectively.
Although Real Unión had not won the final before, it was the product of the merger between Irún Sporting Club and Racing Club de Irún, the latter of which had won the 1913 Copa del Rey. In the quarterfinals, Unión beat Sporting de Gijón 4-1 thanks to a hat-trick from René Petit and a header from Agustín Amantegui. Sporting's goal also came from a penalty. Two days later, Unión beat Real Fortuna FC in the semifinals, again with a 4-1 result. Madrid newspaper Gran Vida's Fr. Nasarre mentions an upset by the galicians was expected and noted the "excellent" quality of their players, although their lack of cohesion allowed Unión to keep possession of the ball throughout the match and win.
Madrid faced Catalan champions RCD Espanyol in the quarterfinal. The first leg was played in Barcelona, with the match delayed by one day due to strong rains that lasted until six in the afternoon on the original day of the match. Espanyol eventually won 3-0. In the second leg, Madrid beat the Catalans with one goal, Espanyol playing with too much restraint to take advantage of the exhausted locals according to R. Ruiz Ferry of El Sol. Under the rules at the time, aggregate score was not used as a tie-breaker, and so a replay match was played 2 days after the second leg even though Espanyol had scored 3 goals to Madrid's 1 over the two legs. Madrid won 2-1, although Ruiz Ferry commented that they looked dominant throughout the match.
The semifinals saw Madrid play against Southern Region champions Recreativo de Huelva. In the second leg, Madrid won 4-0 and thus qualified for the final.
Match
Build-up
The match was completely sold out, for the first time in the stadium's history.
Summary
The match started out relatively even until "seconds before the end of the first half" until a shot on target by Unión was blocked by Eduardo Teus. An assistant referee waved a handkerchief indicating a goal was scored, explaining to Teus and other Madrid players that the ball had been stopped behind the goal line while the Unión players took advantage of the distraction to place the ball into the goal.
In the second half, Madrid dominated the first 30 minutes but were unable to score. Then, in the last minutes of the second half Madrid's players became unable to stop their opponents attacks leaving Teus "helpless" according to Fr. Nasarre, which led to the second goal of the match by Juan Legarreta in favor of Real Unión.
Details
Notes
References
1918
Copa
Real Madrid CF matches
Real Unión matches
May 1918 sports events