Zaragoza was playing an important game at home against Real Madrid and near the end Marcelino, the local hero, fell apathetically into the penalty area. The spectators demanded a penalty kick, while Marcelino stirred painfully on the grass. When he got up, the referee asked him to place the ball at the place where the foul was committed. Marcelino put the ball outside of the penalty area. That match was refereed by Juanito Gardeazabal Garai (Begoña, 1923), who acted this way because he did not know the exact place where the foul took place. This is one of many juicy anecdotes of the best referee in the history of Spanish football, who died half a century ago. Gardeazabal died just before he would have turned 46, on 21 December 1969. His retirement was close, as the rule forced referees to hang their whistle at age 47. His premature disappearance deprived him of attending the World Cup in Mexico, which would have been the fourth World Cup in his brilliant palmares, the finishing touch to a trajectory with more than 100 matches of international teams and continental tournaments.
The prestige that the referee from Bilbao achieved did not deprive him of criticism, altercations and various challenges. There were times of a bronco football where the referees were usually crossed out as homemakers, and, therefore, influenced the results. It was not his case, according to this chronicle: "He could irritate the public of the home team, but the teams knew that with him, playing away, they could not find better refereeing. Gardeazabal abstracted himself from spectators, managers and players, let them play and was not afraid of being wrong". They asked him if immediate decision making was the most complex part of his task. He responded: "The most difficult thing is to maintain a personality and get hold of the player, show him that whoever has judged him is fair. Sending-off is easy. The beautiful thing is to bring the ship to fruition". However, he did not hesitate to send off Kubala in front of the Barca fans and, after a furious press campaign, Barça managed not to be refereed by him again in a year. Here is his soft reply: "The referee acts with the same good faith as the player. I do not ask for more than the same treatment that is given to the player when he fails a penalty kick and receives his teammates' encouragement".
A contemporary colleague defined Gardeazabal as follows: "He has a caste and temperament. His serenity prevents the public from knowing his true mood. He is formidable and above all sympathetic". Urizar Azpitarte nods and recalls his first conversation with him: "Kid, do you always whistle like that? Well, you will go far”. Urizar says he learned a lot from him: "He had an impressive personality on the field. What he decided was going to happen. His relationship with the players was unique, it was as if they were his children. He even managed to get Di Stefano and Kubala to shake hands. He was a cherished person, without enemies, his seriousness did not prevent him from being ironic, witty, even horny. With Francisco Franco in the VIP box, one of his ministers, Jose Solís, went down to the locker room to ask Gardeazabal to guarantee the normal development of the game so as not to bother the "Caudillo". Neither cut nor lazy, Gardeazabal snapped him to convey to Franco that the game would go smoothly, that he had everything under control and that he focused on his things. Solis, baffled by the firm reaction of his interlocutor, made it clear that he had got the message: "Don't worry, I will tell him so". Gardeazabal then told the episode smiling, but he would recognize that knowing that perhaps he did not measure his response well did not rule out his potential arrest as opposed to a happy ending.
Juanito Gardeazabal, with a street in his name in Santutxu, left his mark on the Spanish refereeing. Thin, but plenty of energy, judgment and elegance in its mission. San Mames hosted a tribute in his memory in February 1971. Jack Taylor, an English colleague who refereed the 1974 World Cup final between Netherlands and Germany, declared that Gardeazabal was "a lord, the most respected referee" of all he had known.
Source: Deia