Telling who Antonio Oviedo was would give for many chapters, in sports and personally, because he was always very much his and in both facets he could be described as a legend, historical, anarchic, revolutionary and waywardeither as a player, as a coach and even as a person, a tireless conversationalist in football matters and a guy who endeared himself despite his messy life as when he exercised on the pitch.
As a player he was part of the historic squad that achieved the first promotion to First division in 1960 together with the adorable Joan Forteza, Julià Mir (both alive and very affected by the news) like others who have already left, cases of Bolao, very recently, or those remembered by Arqué, Doro, Zamora and company.
Oviedo came to the island to play between 1959 and 1963. Before wearing the vermilion shirt he had played for Atlético de Madrid, Córdoba, Rayo Vallecano and Sevilla, and after Mallorca he played with Elche, Granada and Levante.
After abandoning the active practice of football, he stayed to live in Mallorca and years later he worked as a coach in clubs on the island such as Margaritense or Atlético Baleares. to finally return to the discipline of Real Mallorca achieving as a coach in two years (1979-1981) two direct promotions from the Third Division to the Second through the now defunct Second B and achieving a record that is difficult to match: Not knowing defeat at home in those two years directing his beloved Mallorca.
His departure from the club was traumatic, being fired by President Miguel Contestí in the middle of the Christmas holidays; in the morning he received his corresponding Christmas basket and on the afternoon of December 24 (Christmas Eve) he received a call informing him of his dismissal. Nobody understood the reasons for the dismissal since Mallorca was well classified and Oviedo, as a coach, was appreciated by the players and the fans. Their differences reached unsustainable limits.
After Mallorca, Antonio Oviedo directed Poblense, Almería Sports Center, Cacereño, Almería and Macael Marble. He ended his career as a technician and returned to the island to settle in Palma. A few years ago he worked again at the club as a soccer player scout.
A difficult life and a successful past leave Antonio Oviedo, born in 1938 in Valencia de Acántara (Cáceres), as a symbol of Majorcanism.
His former teammates and friends until the last day, Joan Forteza and Julián Mir, have been very sad and affected. Forteza points out that this Tuesday, May 17 “is a very sad day, because Antonio was whatever you want him to be, but he was very salty and very nice, and on the pitch, as a footballer he was capable of the best and the worst in the same party.” For Mir, his partner was “footballingly eccentric, he was a revulsive for us and although sometimes we would have caught him by the neck, he was a reference; he was a great person and sometimes very personal in the game of football”.
Rest in peace another of the so-called ‘heroes of Vallejo’, those who in 1960 put Real Mallorca on the map of the First Division of Spanish football for the first time.