Alberto Gallardo

He signed for the modest Mariscal Castilla after being observed by some directors in a match played by his school in the city of Huacho and which caught his attention due to the enormous potential they saw in him. Along with his career as a footballer, he also worked as an office worker at the club since his salary was very low. Mariscal Castilla was the surprise club of the 1959 Peruvian Primera División, finishing the tournament in third place;[9] Gallardo's good performances earned him his call-up to the Peruvian national football team that would participate in the 1960 Summer Olympics.[10]

The Bentín family who were the founders of Sporting Cristal was interested in Alberto Gallardo since before the championship ended. Thus, both reached an agreement even before his departure for the Olympic Games. Upon his return, Gallardo became part of Sporting Cristal. His debut with the Rimense club took place on September 10, 1960 in the game that Cristal beat Mariscal Sucre 3-1. Gallardo scored his first goal on October 1 against Sport Boys in a 2-2 draw. Gallardo would score five more goals that tournament.

During the following years, Gallardo would enter the history of the Bajopontino club. In 1961, under the guidance of coach Juan Honores, Sporting Cristal had an excellent campaign with a team full of many youth players.[11] Among them were Orlando de la Torre, Eloy Campos, Roberto Elías, Alberto Ramírez and José del Castillo. Gallardo stood out with seventeen goals throughout the championship in eighteen games played.[12] The national title had to be defined with Alianza Lima, beating it 2-0 with a goal scored by Gallardo.[11] With his goal in the final, Gallardo was proclaimed top scorer of the year with eighteen goals.[13] This gave Sporting Cristal its second title in the tournament and the first time it had the tournament's top scorer.

In the 1962 Copa Libertadores, he scored three goals, one of them in the historic victory against Racing Club de Avellaneda as this was the first victory for the Sporting Cristal club in the history of the continental tournament. With a view to that year's championship, he participated with the club in a tour around the world where matches were held with clubs from Europe, Africa, North America and Asia, 16 and with some national teams such as South Korea and Singapore.[14] Gallardo managed to score thirty-seven goals in thirty games played, 18Of which the club won twenty, drew seven and lost three.[15] At the end of that year, he once again proclaimed himself the runner-up scorer with twenty-two goals.[13]

Due to his great performance, he was called up for the Peru national football team for the 1963 South American Championship where he had another outstanding performance by being the team's top scorer with four goals. Upon his return to Sporting Cristal, he continued his scoring streak scoring ten goals in thirteen games played. His good performances made several foreign clubs take notice of him and by the middle of the year, Gallardo signed for AC Milan.

Gallardo would play for AC Milan beginning in the 1963–64 season which recently became the champion of the 1962–63 European Cup and alternated with great figures of the time such as Cesare Maldini and Gianni Rivera. Gallardo however wouldn't play much matches within the club however, playing only fifteen games in which he scored two goals.

In 1964, he was loaned to Cagliari Calcio, a club where he played more regularity. He stayed there until 1966 and scored six goals. He had a brief return to Peru to play a friendly match between Sporting Cristal and FC Barcelona on July 25, 1964 to raise funds after the Estadio Nacional disaster.[16] The match ended tied at two goals with one of them being scored by Gallardo himself.[17]

After an irregular season with Calcio, he was signed by the Brazilian Palmeiras in 1966, a team that was committed to relegation. Gallardo would be more prominent within the club and won important titles. That year he won the Paulista Championship . The following season he won the two most important tournaments in Brazil, the Taça Brasil and the Roberto Gomes Pedrosa Tournament, thus consecrating himself the winner of the two Brasileirãos in 1967. Gallardo played forty-nine games in two seasons, in which he scored sixteen goals.[18]

After his career in Brazil, he returned to Sporting Cristal at the request of the Brazilian coach Didi. Gallardo played in the 1968 Copa Libertadores where he had a good performance and scored five goals but Gallardo would receive various injuries in the same year. However, he would score ten goals in twenty games played. One of the most memorable matches of Gallardo was that of the 1968 Torneo Descentralizado final against Juan Aurich, often considered to be the "revelation" team of the year. In a completely full National Stadium of Peru, Cristal and Aurich played a very close match that was open to anyone. In the 52nd minute, Alberto Gallardo entered and barely four minutes after his arrival he opened the scoring with a typical goal of his: he struck into space, received a long pass and scored a goal with a powerful left foot.[19] In the next play, just after play had resumed, Gallardo stole the ball, reached the area and, based on dribbling, caused a penalty that he himself converted to seal the match.[19] Gallardo had his great night that earned him his second championship at Sporting Cristal and definitely gave him the quality of an idol of the club.[20]

He scored three goals in the 1969 Copa Libertadores and in that tournament, Cristal would set another record of remaining undefeated for seventeen consecutive games, a continental record that still stands today. Of them, he won eight and drew nine.[21] The streak began on February 20, 1962 when they beat Racing Club de Argentina 2-1 in Lima and continued until March 11, 1969 when they fell 2-0 in Santiago against Santiago Wanderers.[21] Gallardo would score seven goals that year.

His third title came in the 1970 Torneo Descentralizado as he reached third place and qualified for the final round. 25 In the final league of six games, an almost perfect score was accumulated, winning five games and tying the rest with which he surpassed Universitario de Deportes by one point and won the championship.[22] According to the general opinion of the press at the time, Alberto Gallardo with his seventeen goals was deemed to be the best player of that year.[23][24]

In 1971 he played again in the 1971 Copa Libertadores. He participated in the match against Boca Juniors that ended with a pitched battle at La Bombonera where he would kick Rubén Suñé in the face after he attacked Gallardo with a corner flag.[25] In the Peruvian tournament, he plays twenty-six games and scores twenty-two goals, leaving the team in fourth place in the tournament. On June 13, 1971, he managed, for the first time in the history of Sporting Cristal, to score 4 goals in a match against Porvenir Miraflores in the 5-2 win.

In 1972, Gallardo played all seven games in the first round of the Metropolitan Tournament, scoring one goal but he would then be called up to the national team for the Mundialito played in Brazil. In the middle of that year, an injury produced with the Peruvian team prevented him from playing for the rest of that year. But equally the team from Bajo Pontino achieved its fourth crown under the leadership of the Peruvian director Marcos Calderón.[26]

In 1973, he managed to score seven goals in thirty-three games played and Sporting Cristal finished runner-up in Peru. The following year in 1974, he played twenty-two games and beat rival teams eleven times. At the end of 1974, he announced his retirement from football to dedicate himself to directing the lower divisions of the club. In October 1976, at the request of Ricardo Bentín Mujica, he returned to the courts. It was in a match against Alianza Lima at night that morning when Mrs. Esther Grande had died. Despite all this, Cristal thrashed 3-0 with his scores.[27] That year Gallardo played nine games and scored five times.

When he had retired from football again, the Cristal managers asked him to play the remainder of the 1977 Copa Libertadores because the team was performing poorly. His last two goals were scored at the Estadio Nacional del Perú against Deportivo Junín in a game that, after losing 0-3, the sky-blues won 5-3 and for the remainder of that year, he would play 10 more games. 1978 was the year of his final retirement, his last official presentation was on February 19, at age 37 against Unión Huaral at the Julio Lores Colán Stadium. Sporting Cristal fell 2-0 and Gallardo entered in the second half, replacing Reynaldo Jaime.

In total, Gallardo scored 148 goals with Sporting Cristal's kit, 137 for the local tournament and 11 for the Copa Libertadores.

For his recognized work with youth clubs, he was the coach of the U-20 National Team that was planned to participate in the 1981 South American U-20 Championship in Ecuador but would withdraw. Likewise Gallardo was appointed coach of the U-17 National Team that participated in the 1993 South American U-17 Championship. In the tournament, Peru placed third in their group and was eliminated in the group stage.