Our Factfile series return after a brief hiatus and to kick off our new year edition, we thought  it an auspicious occasion to pay tribute to the Barcelona player who, eighty years ago, scored the club’s first ever league goal.

His name was Manuel Parera, one of two Parera brothers who played for Barcelona in the 1920′s, the other being defender, Ramon. Described as a younger winger of blistering pace, Parera claimed the honors of having scored the club’s first ever league goal.

It happened in February 1929 at the El Sardinero against Racing Santander, a fate which, in 2009, was embraced by Argentine international and Barcelona winger, Lionel Messi, who scored Barcelona’s 5,000th goal on the same pitch, against the same opponent. There were uncanny similarities in the two events: Parera, who was left footed just like Messi, was also 21 years old when he achieved his feat. He scored a brace against Racing as did Messi, and on the days these events would transpire, the El Sardinero was at its inhospitable best. Windy conditions hampered the matches and incessant rain had turned the turf virtually unplayable. What differentiated the two events was that in Lionel Messi’s Barcelona 2-1 victory over Racing, Messi scored the two goals with his right foot.

From his much heralded debut in 2004, Messi went on to become the world’s best, garnering well deserved awards and accolades along the way. About one Manuel Parera, nobody wrote anything, not even for those couple of goals, perhaps a testament of how the game has changed with the times. This is our small tribute to the one who first wrote history: Manuel Parera was the man who worked as an electrician during the week, went to the movies on Saturday and on Sunday at Les Corts, he transformed into a goal scoring Barcelona winger, earning a monthly wage of 300 pesetas.