Football's Pioneers: José Leandro Andrade

Born in Salto, Uruguay on 22 November 1901, José achieved fame as the creative heartbeat of the Uruguay team that achieved global prominence by winning the 1924 and 1928 Olympic titles, as well as the inaugural World Cup in 1930.

Andrade came to fame playing left-wing for Bella Vista in the Montevidean suburb of Maldonado, where he won the first of his 33 international caps for Uruguay.

He later dropped back to wing-half and went on to star for the country’s two biggest clubs, Nacional and Peñarol.

With Uruguayan football being amateur at the time, Andrade also undertook an eclectic range of jobs, including carnival musician and shoe-shiner in order to make ends meet.

The highpoint of Andrade’s career came at the 1924 Olympic Games in Paris, where Uruguay broke new ground by becoming the first South American country to appear in the football tournament of the Games, and the first to field black players in a global competition.

Uruguay’s presence enabled Andrade to have fun with the local press, claiming that the team’s movement, which had bemused opponents, was due to chasing chickens in training.

His key role in the 5-1 thrashing of hosts France in the quarter-final, where he set up three of the goals, made Andrade the darling of the Stade Colombes and the French press.

After the Games, Andrade remained in Paris for several months, where he enjoyed his celebrity status, making the most of the bohemian nightlife, dressed in top-hat and tails and carrying a silver cane.

Although he would go on to win other honours at international and club level, Andrade’s play would never quite recapture the heights of that heady Parisian summer, as ill-health plagued the remainder of his career.

Later, he lost his sight in one eye, the result, it was claimed, of his head colliding with a goal post in the 1928 Olympic semi-final against Italy.

After retiring in 1934 - the introduction of professionalism three years earlier coming too late to set him up financially, the ground-breaking star died from tuberculosis in 1957, aged 55.

For several seasons, Leicester City Football Club has worked with De Montfort University’s International Centre for Sports History & Culture on various heritage projects. This season, staff and students at the Centre will feature those players who were pioneers that contributed to the growth and development of the game. 

For more information about sports history at DMU please click HERE.