Bernabé Ferreyra

Bernabé Ferreyra

Ferreyra in 1936 while playing for River Plate.
Personal information
Date of birth	(1909-02-12)12 February 1909
Place of birth	Rufino, Argentina
Date of death	22 May 1972(1972-05-22) (aged 63)
Playing position	Forward
Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
1927–1932	Tigre	43	(45)
1930–1931	→ Vélez Sársfield (loan)	0	(0)
1932–1939	River Plate	185	(187)
National team
1930–1937	Argentina	4	(0)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only.

Bernabé Ferreyra (12 February 1909 – 22 May 1972) was an Argentine association football forward. He was one of the first professional players in Argentine football to reach great popularity, to the point that he had a movie biography.

Bernabé Ferreyra debuted at 14 in Jorge Newbery, a local club from his home town. At the age of 18 he went to BAP, a club of Junín, Buenos Aires Province. His senior career started in 1926 playing for Newell´s Old Boys, when Argentine football was still amateur. Then he went to Tigre. He scored four goals to El Porvenir in his debut match. He was given on loan to Huracán for a tour to Brazil, where he played eight matches scoring 11 goals also when Argentine football was still amateur .

Between 1930 and 1931, Tigre loaned him for free to Vélez Sársfield, to play with the club during their Pan-American tour. He scored 38 goals with the team during the tour.

In 1932, Ferreyra was transferred from Tigre to River Plate for a record transfer fee of 23,000 pounds. He kept this record for a total of 17 years – the longest unbroken time period for this record.

His first match with River was on 13 March 1932 facing Chacarita. River won 3–1 and Ferreyra scored 2 goals. Bernabé played a total of 185 matches for River, scoring 187 goals, with an average of 1.01 goal per game. He obtained 3 local leagues as player, all of them in River Plate (1932, 1936 and 1937). In the 1932 league tournament, he was the top scorer with 43 goals. This also gave him the title of top scorer in South America.