It is not very common that a football team, the night before a football match visits a monastery. However, on the 3rd of April in 1963, Real Madrid, three days after officially winning the championship of Spain, visited a Dominican monastery in the North of the country.

At the time, the team was composed of famous stars, such as Di Stéfano, Puskas and Santamaría. Real Madrid had a match in the northern part of the country against Osasuna, so they decided to visit a Dominican monk, living in a monastery nearby. That monk was the ex-President of the club, Rafael Sanchez-Guerra.

Rafael Sanchez-Guerra was a devoted Christian, and even though he was the president of the club only for one season (1935-1936), his career was short, but prosperous, as he led Real Madrid to win the championship.

After 1936, he stayed on at the club as a consultant, but in 1939 he was imprisoned during the Franco regime. He spent twenty-four months in prison, but during all this time, he never lost his faith.

Finally, in 1959, he promised his dying wife that he would become a monk. On the 5th of November, in 1960, he entered the Dominican order and stayed there as a monk until he died in 1964, at the age of 66.

Source: fr.aleteia.org