Alfredo Di Stéfano Trivia
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50 free Alfredo Di Stéfano trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Alfredo Di Stéfano trivia quiz follows the Blond Arrow from a Buenos Aires street team to the greatest Real Madrid player of all. The easy questions are ones any football fan could answer: his nickname, the club he is synonymous with, how many European Cups he won in a row, and the famous 7–3 final in Glasgow. The harder end is for football historians: the fastest goal in Argentine league history, the strike that sent him to Bogotá's Ballet Azul, the FIFA mediator who tried to split him between Madrid and Barcelona, the Ballon d'Or he lost by three votes to Stanley Matthews, his hat-trick on debut for Spain, the three national teams he represented, the guerrillas who kidnapped him in Caracas in 1963, his 22 La Liga hat-tricks, the Espanyol swansong at 39, the titles he won as a coach with Boca and Valencia, the Cup Winners' Cup final lost to Alex Ferguson's Aberdeen, and the one-off Super Ballon d'Or of 1989. Puskás, Gento, Kopa, Rial and Santiago Bernabéu get questions too. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries for the player, his clubs and his finals before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. If you enjoy this one, try our Real Madrid, Ferenc Puskás and European Cup quizzes next.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What was Alfredo Di Stéfano's famous nickname?
Saeta Rubia
Saeta Rubia means Blond Arrow, for his fair hair and his speed. Fans in Buenos Aires chanted: 'Help, help, here comes the Saeta with his jet propulsion.'
Q 02Which Manchester United reserve watched Di Stéfano from the stands in 1957 and later called him the most complete footballer he'd seen?
Bobby Charlton
Bobby Charlton, left out of the side that day, sat high in the stands in Madrid as Real beat United 3–1 in a European Cup semi-final. He recalled thinking 'Who is this man?' as one player took the ball from everyone and ran the whole game.
Q 03Which newly crowned European champions were the visitors for Di Stéfano's farewell match at Real Madrid in 1967?
Celtic
Celtic had tried to sign him three years earlier, and he had turned them down. They came to his farewell two weeks after winning the European Cup in Lisbon, and spoiled the party by winning 1–0.
Q 04Which club took Di Stéfano on loan for the 1946 season, when he scored his first senior goals?
Huracán
Huracán were the opponents in his only senior game of 1945, a defeat. A year on he was scoring ten league goals in their colours, before going back to his parent club when no permanent deal was struck.
Q 05Which Independiente goalscorer was Di Stéfano's boyhood football idol?
Arsenio Erico
Arsenio Erico was a Paraguayan centre-forward who scored all his Argentine league goals for Independiente. So the boy's hero wore the colours of a different club from the one his own father had played for.
Q 06Which future Real Madrid star did coach Di Stéfano hand a first-team debut in February 1984?
Emilio Butragueño
Emilio Butragueño answered with two goals as Real Madrid came from behind to win 3–2 at Cádiz. His nickname, the Vulture, had already named a whole homegrown generation that Di Stéfano was promoting.
Q 07Which international tournament did Di Stéfano win with Argentina in 1947?
Copa América
The Copa América, then called the South American Championship, brought him six goals in six games in Ecuador. Those six games turned out to be the only ones he ever played for Argentina.
Q 08In which position did Di Stéfano fill in for a teammate during a 1949 Buenos Aires derby?
Goalkeeper
Goalkeeper Amadeo Carrizo was hurt and the rules allowed no substitute, so the centre-forward took his place. Di Stéfano did not concede a goal while he stood in, and his side won the derby.
Q 09Why did Di Stéfano leave Argentina for Colombia in 1949?
A footballers' strike
A footballers' strike over pay and contracts split the Argentine game. The clubs finished their fixtures with youth and amateur players, and the stars walked out to better-paid leagues abroad.
Q 10Which Bogotá club did Di Stéfano join in 1949?
Millonarios
Millonarios paid no transfer fee at all. Colombia's league had broken away from FIFA, so its clubs could ignore the rules, sign whoever they liked and spend the money on wages instead.
Q 11What was the nickname of the famous Bogotá team of Di Stéfano, Pedernera and Rossi?
Ballet Azul
Ballet Azul, the Blue Ballet, was the Colombian press's name for a team in blue shirts that passed its way around opponents. On a 1952 tour of Europe it beat Real Madrid 4–2 in Madrid.
Q 12Which Real Madrid president resolved to sign Di Stéfano after watching him star in the club's 50th-anniversary tournament in 1952?
Santiago Bernabéu
Santiago Bernabéu watched the guests from Bogotá beat his own team 4–2 at Real Madrid's birthday party, with Di Stéfano running the game. Signing him took another year and a fight with a rival club.
Q 13Which club agreed a deal with his old Argentine club for Di Stéfano before Real Madrid stepped in?
Barcelona
Q 21How did Di Stéfano mark his Spain debut in January 1957?
A hat-trick against the Netherlands
A hat-trick against the Netherlands opened a 5–1 win in Madrid, but the dream start led nowhere. Spain lost in Scotland months later, failed to qualify, and he missed the 1958 World Cup.
Q 22Which Real Madrid teammate, later his coach, said that with Di Stéfano 'you have two players in every position'?
Miguel Muñoz
Miguel Muñoz played beside him and then managed him. The line stuck because it was close to true: Di Stéfano would make a sliding tackle in his own penalty area and, a minute later, be shooting at the other end.
Q 23Whom did Di Stéfano replace as Real Madrid coach in November 1990, at the age of 64?
Barcelona bought his registration from the Argentine club that still held it. Real Madrid instead paid the club in Colombia he was actually playing for, so two rivals each held a contract for the same man.
Q 14What compromise was ordered when two Spanish clubs both claimed Di Stéfano?
Alternate seasons between the two clubs
Alternate seasons between the two clubs was the ruling, with Real Madrid given the first. He began slowly, and within weeks the other club sold its share, a decision it would long regret.
Q 15For which occasion did Di Stéfano captain a Rest of the World team against England at Wembley in 1963?
The FA's centenary
The FA's centenary brought a FIFA-picked world team to London, led by Di Stéfano at 37 with Eusébio beside him in attack. England spoiled the visitors' day when Jimmy Greaves scored a last-minute winner.
Q 16Which La Liga trophy did Di Stéfano win five times?
Pichichi Trophy
The Pichichi Trophy goes to the league's top scorer. His 27 goals took it at the first attempt and ended Real Madrid's 21-year wait for the title.
Q 17Whom did Real Madrid beat 4–3 in the first European Cup final in 1956?
Reims
Reims led 2–0 inside ten minutes before Di Stéfano scored the goal that began the comeback. Fifty years later the two clubs met again, to open the stadium that Real Madrid had named after him.
Q 18To whom did Di Stéfano lose the first Ballon d'Or in 1956 by three points?
Stanley Matthews
Stanley Matthews was a 41-year-old winger at Blackpool when he edged the vote 47 points to 44 over the star of the European champions. Di Stéfano had to wait a year, then won the award in 1957 and 1959.
Q 19Which Real Madrid teammate won the Ballon d'Or in 1958, between Di Stéfano's two wins?
Raymond Kopa
Raymond Kopa, third in each of the first two votes, took the award in 1958. A year later Di Stéfano won it back and pushed the Frenchman down to second place.
Q 20Real Madrid's new French signing of 1956 could not play in the league until Di Stéfano did what?
Became a Spanish citizen
Became a Spanish citizen: Spain capped the number of foreigners a club could field, so the newcomer had to wait until Di Stéfano's new passport freed a place. The same papers later let him play for Spain.
John Toshack
John Toshack had won the league only months earlier with a record 107 goals, and was sacked after a poor start. Di Stéfano's second spell in charge was brief, but long enough to lift the Spanish Super Cup.
Q 24What kept Di Stéfano out of the 1962 World Cup?
An injury
An injury just before it began kept him on the sidelines in Chile, though he had travelled with Spain's squad at 35. One of the greatest players of all never appeared in a single World Cup match.
Q 25Which Brazilian 1958 World Cup winner joined Real Madrid in 1959–60 and clashed with Di Stéfano?
Didi
Didi, named the best player of the 1958 World Cup, lasted a single season. The two clashed, and Di Stéfano is said to have frozen the newcomer out.
Q 26What was the score when Real Madrid beat Eintracht Frankfurt in the 1960 European Cup final?
7–3
7–3 it ended, after Eintracht had scored first. Plenty of people had tipped the Germans to win, having watched them put twelve goals past Rangers over the two legs of their semi-final.
Q 27Which Hungarian shared the goals with Di Stéfano in Real Madrid's 1960 European Cup final win?
Ferenc Puskás
Ferenc Puskás had arrived two years earlier, 31, overweight and just off a long ban, after Italian clubs judged him finished. In Madrid he and Di Stéfano formed one of the great attacking partnerships.
Q 28Where was the 1960 European Cup final played?
Hampden Park
Hampden Park in Glasgow held 127,621 that night, nearly all of them neutral Scots, who stayed to applaud the winners. The display is credited with changing British attitudes to continental football.
Q 29Which South American champions did Real Madrid beat to win the first Intercontinental Cup in 1960?
Peñarol
Peñarol of Uruguay held them 0–0 in Montevideo, then lost 5–1 in Madrid, where Di Stéfano scored. The new trophy let Europe's champions call themselves the best club side in the world.
Q 30Which team beat Real 5–3 in the 1962 European Cup final, the first Di Stéfano failed to score in?
Benfica
Benfica trailed 2–0 and then 3–2 before two goals in three minutes from the young Eusébio settled it. It was the first European Cup final Real Madrid had ever lost.