Luis Álamos

Luis Álamos
Personnel
Surname	Luis Álamos Luque
birthday	December 25, 1923
place of birth	Chañaral ,  Chile
date of death	June 26, 1983
Place of death	Santiago ,  Chile
position	midfield
Men's
Years	station	Games (goals) 1
1941-1955	CF Universidad de Chile
Stations as a trainer
Years	station
1956-1966	Universidad de Chile
1966	Chile
1967-1968	Audax Italiano
1970	Lota's brother-in-law
1971	Santiago Wanderers
1972-1975	Colo-Colo
1973-1974	Chile
1976-1977	Santiago Morning
1978	Coquimbo Unido
1979	Unión Española
1979	Santiago Wanderers
1 Only league games are given.

Luis Álamos Luque (born September 25, 1923 in Chañaral , † June 26, 1983 in Santiago ) was a Chilean football player and later coach. As an active player only active at CF Universidad de Chile , he later coached the Chilean national soccer team at two world championships and led Colo-Colo Santiago as the first Chilean team to make it into the final of the Copa Libertadores .

Player career

Luis Álamos was born on December 25, 1923 in Chañaral in northern Chile . He joined Universidad de Chile in his youth . It was there that the midfielder spent his entire career as an active soccer player, playing for the club for fifteen years from 1941 to 1955. During this time, Universidad de Chile and Luis Álamos did not win a title. The club was then in a nine-tooth championship thirst stretch. After winning the first title ever in the club's history (1940), it was not until 1959 that Universidad de Chile could win the Chilean football championship again. The coach was Luis Álamos for this second title win - four years after he had stopped playing for Universidad de Chile.

Coaching career

After giving up his active career the year before, Luis Álamos began working as a coach for Universidad de Chile in 1956. He led the club back on the road to success and in 1959, after nineteen years, won the title of Chilean football champion again. In 1962, 1964 and 1965 three more championships could be added, so that Álamos Universidad de Chile led to a total of four championship honors. Furthermore, Álamos' Universidad de Chile provided a large part of the successful Chilean team at the 1962 World Cup in their own country. Many of the Universidad players such as Leonel Sánchez , Jaime Ramírez or Luis Eyzaguirre played an important role in achieving third place at the World Cup.

After eleven years as coach of the Universidad de Chile, Luis Álamos gave up this position in the summer of 1966 to look after the Chilean national team at the 1966 World Cup in England . However, the world tournament failed across the board and Chile had to return home after the first round as the last of the preliminary round group D behind the Soviet Union , North Korea and Italy . Then Luis Álamos had to resign as national coach, successor was the Argentine vice world champion from 1930, Alejandro Scopelli .

In the following years Luis Álamos had coaching stations of short duration, which also did not bring great success. He worked for two years from 1967 to 1968 for Audax Italiano La Florida and one year for Lota Schwager and the Santiago Wanderers in 1970 and 1971 .

In 1972 Álamos took over the coaching position of today's record champions Colo-Colo Santiago . At the club Álamos formed a very powerful troupe, which earned the nickname Ballet Azul because of their playful class. After the championship title in 1972, the team around players like goalkeeper Adolfo Nef , midfield director Francisco Valdés and striker Sergio Ahumada played their way into the final of the Copa Libertadores , the most important competition for club teams in South America, a year later . There Colo-Colo met the Argentinian serial winner at the time, Independiente Avellaneda . After it was tied on the return leg, Álamos' team lost 2-1 after extra time in the now necessary playoff and missed the title. Nevertheless, the Colo-Colo team at that time set standards when they became the first Chilean team to make it into the final of the Copa Libertadores. A year later, in 1974, Colo-Colo also won the title of the Chilean soccer cup , which was played for the first time in twelve years, by beating the Santiago Wanderers in the final .

Parallel to his work as a club coach at Colo-Colo, Luis Álamos also looked after the Chilean national team in a second term from 1973 to 1974. He took over the office from the German Rudi Gutendorf , who had left the country shortly after the military coup against the socialist president Salvador Allende for reasons of his sympathy for Allende. Álamos led the Chilean selection through the playoff second leg for qualifying for the 1974 World Cup in Germany against the Soviet Union. After Chile had reached a goalless draw in Moscow under Álamos' predecessor Gutendorf , both teams met for the second leg in the national stadium in Santiago de Chile , which was actually used by the military junta as an internment camp for political prisoners. For this reason, the Soviet team did not play, Chile's Francisco Valdés scored 1-0 without resistance, the referee could no longer whistle the game and Chile had qualified for the finals in Germany. There, however, the team of coach Luis Álamos failed again early on. In a group with the Federal Republic of Germany , the GDR and Australia you only came third and dropped out. After the World Cup, Luis Álamos' second term as Chilean national coach ended. He was succeeded in his office by Pedro Morales Torres , previously master coach of CD Huachipato .

In the following years Luis Álamos could not build on the previous successes of his coaching career. In short and relatively unsuccessful interludes with CD Santiago Morning , Coquimbo Unido , Unión Española and again with the Santiago Wanderes, Álamos did not have much success. In 1979 his long coaching career ended. Four years later, Luis Álamos died in Santiago de Chile at the age of 59.

successes

• Chilean championship : 5 ×

1959, 1962, 1964 and 1965 with Universidad de Chile

1972 with Colo-Colo

• Chilean cup win : 1 ×

1974 with Colo-Colo

• Copa Libertadores final : 1 ×

1973 with Colo-Colo

Web links

• Luis Álamos in the database of weltfussball.de
• Information about Álamos
• Profile of Álamos