Julio Munlloch

Early career

Munlloch began his footballing career in the youth ranks of his hometown club CE Europa, known as Petits Bordoys ("The Bordoys boys"), named after the club's former goalkeeper Juan Bordoy. He later recalled that he had started as a center forward as a child, but he "failed because I was afraid since my physique could not resist hand-to-hand combat; so I continued as a right winger". Following the merger between Europa and Gràcia SC, from which Catalunya FC was born, Munlloch played for the Petits Rodés team of the new entity, later transferring all the players to UD Gràcia in 1930, at the age of 14. He then played two seasons in both Gràcia (1930–32) and Catalunya FC (1932–34), where his quality as a winger stood out, and despite being slim and of short stature, he made up for the lack of muscle with intelligence, skill and a great change of pace, something that caught the attention of one of Barça's most visionary scouts, former goalkeeper Ramón Llorens; he was signed in late 1934, at the age of 18.

FC Barcelona

Munlloch made his debut with the first team on the Christmas Day of 1934, in a friendly match against Sport Club de La Plana in Les Corts (2–1). After scoring 5 goals in 10 friendlies during the 1934–35 season, he made his official debut with the first team in the following season, helping his side to a 5–2 away victory over Sabadell in the opening day of the 1935–36 Catalan championship on 1 September. After just a few games, he was…

On 15 November 1936, Munlloch earned his first and only international cap for the Catalan national team in a match against Valencia CF at the pro anti-fascist militias festival at the Mestalla Stadium, featuring on attack alongside Josep Escolà in a 0–4 loss.

Julio Munlloch was born on Providència Street in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona on 22 October 1916, as the second and last child of the marriage formed by Antoni Munlloch and Concepció Martí, both natives of Barcelona. His father, who was a lottery player, bought tickets at the administration run by Miguel Valdés, a former FC Barcelona player, and sold them in the neighborhood. Munlloch grew up with the sporting successes of FC Barcelona's first golden team, which won five Catalan championship, three Copa del Rey titles, and one La Liga between 1925 and 1930, which naturally motivated him to pursue a footballing career, having his first contact with the ball on the streets of his neighborhood with his friends.

Munlloch loved detective novels, liked adventure movies, and on the desk in his room, in addition to notes and books in French, he accumulated clippings from sports press that mentioned him in order to later read them to "remember these times". In addition to football, he was also passionate about ping-pong and athletics. Despite taking residence in Mexico, he never dropped his mother tongue, joining the Orfeó Català, even being part of the choir. Due to his popularity in Mexico, Munlloch began attending fashionable shows of that time, such as bullfights and carpas, a sort of theater that flourished in Mexico during the 1920s and 1930s, and it was in such places that he met Cantinflas, briefly dating his sister-in-law, the Moscow native Valentina Ivanova Zuvareff. In 1944, he married Irene Piñuelo Dávalos, a Mexican woman of Spanish descent, and the couple had five children: Irene, Concepción, Nuria, Julio, and Javier, with the latter dying at the age of five.