{"id":32004,"date":"2026-04-15T17:20:26","date_gmt":"2026-04-15T15:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=32004"},"modified":"2026-04-15T17:21:04","modified_gmt":"2026-04-15T15:21:04","slug":"real-madrid-great-santamaria-dies-at-96","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/real-madrid-great-santamaria-dies-at-96\/","title":{"rendered":"Real Madrid great Santamaria dies at 96"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"ms-outlook-mobile-body-separator-line\" dir=\"ltr\" data-applydefaultfontstyles=\"true\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><span style=\"font-family: var(--global--font-secondary); font-size: var(--global--font-size-base);\">Real Madrid great Jose Emilio Santamaria, a defender who won four European Cups with \u200bthe club, has died at the \u200cage of 96, the Spanish side announced on Wednesday.<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"ms-outlook-mobile-signature\">\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>The Uruguay international joined Madrid in 1957 and went \u200bon to lift one Intercontinental Cup, six \u200bLa Liga titles and one Spanish Cup, \u2060making 337 appearances over nine seasons.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div>&#8220;Santamaria will \u200balways be remembered as one of the \u200bgreat symbols of our club. He was part of a team that will remain in the memory of \u200ball madridistas and football fans worldwide,&#8221; Real \u200bMadrid President Florentino Perez said in a statement.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">Santamaria played 25 \u200ctimes \u2060for Uruguay and also represented Spain on 16 occasions. He featured for Uruguay at the 1954 World Cup in Switzerland and later \u200bappeared for \u200bSpain at \u2060the 1962 World Cup in Chile.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">After his playing career, he managed Spain\u2019s \u200bOlympic team at the 1968 Mexico \u200bCity \u2060Games and the 1980 Moscow Olympics. He was also Spain\u2019s coach at the 1982 World \u2060Cup \u200bon home soil and spent \u200bseven seasons in charge of Espanyol, overseeing 252 matches.<\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\"><\/div>\n<div dir=\"ltr\">&#8211;Reuters&#8211;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":22138,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-32004","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The Uruguay international joined Madrid in 1957","published_date":"","news_description":"The Uruguay international joined Madrid in 1957","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32004","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32006,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/32004\/revisions\/32006"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=32004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}