Claramunt: "Abelardo was an extraordinary goalkeeper and person"

Pep Claramunt spoke to VCF MEDIA on Thursday to remember his former teammate, Abelardo -who passed away the previous day at the age of 76.

An extraordinary man

“Abelardo was an extraordinary man. He was very open and had good character. He was everyone's friend. He liked to interact with everyone and he always had good words for you. He was a person you could spend time with, and it was nice to be around him. In the moments that I spent with him, he always behaved extremely well to me. He was an extraordinary goalkeeper, with impressive reflexes and very fast. That allowed him to make history with Valencia CF.”

“It is always important to have great teammates like Abelardo was. We spent many years together and had a good friendship; we shared joy and sorrow, and at times we were important protagonists in the history of Valencia CF.

Part of Valencia CF history

“Abelardo had great performances for Valencia CF. He won trophies with the club and was a cornerstone of those honours. He was the Trofeo Zamora winner in 1971 when we won the League, and in the 1967 Cup final he saved a penalty from Gento to take us into the final.”

“The work by the defence and Abelardo was top level. The rest of the team also helped out, but a back line of Abelardo, Sol, Aníbal, Antón, Jesús Martínez was very strong. It made us very secure and allowed us to think that we didn’t need to score a lot of goals to win games.”

“He won two very important trophies at times when Valencia CF weren’t making a big outlay on players. The team was more than the sum of its parts.”