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Alright class, pay attention because this is about to become very confusing stupid. Athletic Bilbao won the 1904 Copa del Rey tournament. Still with us? Good. They also happened to win it without playing a single game [insert record scratch here]. Not a single one. Not even a five-a-side in the park.
Let's take it from the beginning. 1904 marked the second installment of the Copa del Rey, and three teams were initially slated to participate: Athletic de Bilbao, Espanyol de Barcelona and either Español de Madrid or Madrid-Moderno, who were to fight it out in a preliminary round.
Um...ya. Something like that. Credit: Giphy
It all started to go to hell when Espanyol de Barcelona pulled out of the tournament, citing disagreements with the structure of the competition – good start, right? After that, the Madrid Football Federation added two more teams: Moncloa and Iberia, both from Madrid. Not surprisingly, the addition of an extra team threw off the schedule, and that's when things start to get weird.
Remember how Madrid-Moderno and Español were supposed to play that preliminary round? Well, they did but they tied 5-5. So, with both teams agreeing to not play extra time, they decided on a replay but they couldn't decide when.
Español wanted to play the next day, but Madrid-Moderno refused, stating that it broke tournament rules (which...well, it did). Long story short, Español showed up. Madrid-Moderno didn't. The president of the Madrid Federation, Ceferino Avecilla, decided to award the victory to Español, which was not that much of a surprise. He was also the president of Español.
Think the 1904 Copa del Rey is a complete s***show already? Oh, don't worry. It gets worse.
Why? Just why? Credit: Giphy
Because they added extra teams, Español had to play an extra qualifying match against Moncloa, who had defeated Iberia 4-0 in probably the only incident-free football match of the tournament. That game was then called off when one of Español's defenders was seriously injured. Again, the president tried to declare Español the victor, but this time his proposal was denied. Despite that, the game was decided by lottery, and to nobody's surprise by now, Español went through.
The author researching this article. Credit: Giphy
That brings us back to Athletic Bilbao, who have still yet to play a minute of football. They were originally supposed to play in the final on March 26, 1904, but they had no competitor. That's because Español and Moncloa played their qualifying game the day after the final.
As a result of the confusion, Bilbao did not show up for the rescheduled final on March 30th, so Español were crowned the winners. Of course, Athletic filed a complaint saying that Español had never actually qualified because they technically didn't win any of their games. The other Madrid clubs agreed – most likely out of pure frustration and the need to wash their hands of the whole thing.
And that's how Athletic Bilbao won the 1904 Copa del Rey without playing a single minute of football. Phew Did you get all that?
Sources: RSSSF, Lingua Sport, Wikipedia
