Club Deportivo Euzkadi
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| Full name | Club Deportivo Euzkadi |
|---|---|
| Nickname(s) | Los Vascos |
| Founded | 1938 |
| Dissolved | 1939 |
| Ground | None |
| Manager | Baltazar Junco |
| League | Primera Fuerza |
Club Deportivo Euzkadi was an association football team that played in the Primera Fuerza league in Mexico during the 1938–39 season. It was formed when the Basque Country national football team, which had been touring the world, was refused permission by the world governing body of association football FIFA, to play any more FIFA affiliated teams due to political issues arising from the ongoing Spanish Civil War. As a result of this ruling the team decided to stay in Mexico and participate in the Mexican domestic league under the name Club Deportivo Euzkadi, a move which FIFA allowed.
In 1936 the Spanish Civil War broke out. On one side was the democratically elected Republican Government of Spain, and on the other fascist Spain led by Franco and supported by Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. The in the north of Spain sided with the Republican Government.
In 1937 in the midst of the civil war, José Antonio Aguirre, the first president of the Basque Country (then known as Euzkadi, and currently Euskadi), decided to send the Basque national football team abroad with the duel aim of raising money to take care of the many refugees fleeing the conflict, and also as a form of propaganda to let the world know there was a Basque Government trying to defend itself against the fascist rebels.
This team left Bilbao by plane on 24 April 1937, before transferring to a train in France and arriving at Austerlitz Station in Paris for their first match on the 26 April. They toured Europe in the summer of 1937, visiting France, Czechoslovakia, Poland, the Soviet Union, Denmark and Norway, playing a mixture of national and league sides. They had great success, losing only 4 out of 20 matches, and winning 14.
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