The former Spanish player Josep Maria Fusté, one of the idols of FC Barcelona in the 1960s, died at the age of 82, leaving the club without one of its references as he was a charismatic interior player who played more than 400 official matches with the blaugrana shirt
“Josep Maria Fusté has passed away. Born in Linyola (Lleida) on April 15, 1941, Fusté was a great inside link and one of Barça’s most charismatic players during the sixties,” reported FC Barcelona.
Fusté, with the same origins as another former club player like Bojan Krkic, came to FC Barcelona at the age of 12 and went through the youth ranks until he stood out in the first team, with 406 games played and 117 goals scored.
Before succeeding, he had to be loaned out to Club Atlético Osasuna between 1960 and 1962, since he had to do his military service in Pamplona. Upon his return, he was quickly a starter in the first team and a legend was carved out of him for ten years, until 1972, when he left the entity.
The club assures that his football qualities were “excellent”. “He had strength, speed, a sense of anticipation, game vision and refined technique, apart from a powerful shot. He was the typical player who marked the team’s performance: if Fusté played a good game, his teammates did too,” the club reported. ‘culer’.
Fusté left Barça at the end of the 1971/72 season with a record of three Spanish Cups (1962/63, 1967/68 and 1970/71) and one Fairs Cup (1965/66). The club dedicated a well-deserved tribute match to him on August 30, 1972 and later he played for Hércules de Alicante until 1974.
After retiring from the world of football, he was the head of the Veterans Association between 1976 and 1989, the year in which he was a pre-candidate in the presidential elections for FC Barcelona. Since 2010 he was an adviser to the Blaugrana Board of Directors.