Udo Steinberg

In 1893, at the age of only 16, he was a founding member of the Brandenburg football club in Berlin. In 1896, he was one of the 12 students who founded the Mittweidaer BC, the Mittweida school's football team, and in 1899 he founded, together with other students, the Chemnitz SC Britannia, from which Chemnitzer FC later emerged. On 28 January 1900, Steinberg was sent to Leipzig to attend the founding meeting of the German Football Association (DFB) as a delegate of both Mittweida and Britannia. It was around this time that Steinberg met the Portuguese Virgilio Da Costa, an industrial technical engineer who also played for the Mittweida BC, and with whom he established a great friendship, and they went on to be teammates at FC Barcelona. In addition to da Costa, Mittweida BC was also the football cradle of the likes of Antonio Alonso from Vigo, Juan Arzuaga, Adolfo Uribe and Luis Astorquia from Bilbao. After moving to Barcelona in 1900, he began playing tennis and football with athletes from Germany, England and Switzerland who lived in the Catalan capital, and together, they founded the Barcelona sports club. In April 1902, the first football school of FC Barcelona was created and Steinberg was appointed director of it in order to "instill his extensive knowledge in the players of the third side". This school was the forerunner of La Masia, and he managed it until 1916, which means that, in a way, he was the first-ever youth coach of FC Barcelona. From 5 December 1902 to 6…

Steinberg began to play football actively in 1888, still in Berlin. In 1893, he played with Brandenburg football club, which he had co-founded, and he also played with Berliner SV 1892. During his time in Mittweida, Steinberg played with FC Germania, today Germania Mittweida, and with the Mittweidaer BC and Britannia SC, which he had also co-founded. He played the majority of his footballing career as a midfielder, although during the early years of his career he was a very prolific center forward, very quick on the run and a great specialist in free-kicks. His entry into FC Barcelona was not easy due to his looks, since he was somewhat overweight and had a suspicious goatee. Despite assuring them that he had played with Britannia FC in Berlin, Steinberg was put in Barça's second team, where he impressed the team captain, Luis de Ossó, one of the club's founders, thus earning a chance to show his class. He made his debut for the first team on 6 January 1902 in a match against Hispania AC in the 1901–02 Copa Macaya, making a "marvelous" performance in a 2–4 win. Steinberg quickly established his position in Barcelona and was one of the most prominent players in the team. Steinberg played a fundamental role in Barça's first-ever piece of silverware, the 1901–02 Copa Macaya, netting a whopping 17 goals, including back-to-back hat-tricks against Club Español and University SC and a 6-goal haul in the tournament's final matchday on 23 March 1902 to help his side to a 15–0 victory…

Shortly after graduating, in 1901, he decided to take advantage of a job opportunity in Barcelona, a one-year voluntary service in the city, but ended up settling there. In 1902, he became the representative of German electrical and mechanical engineering companies in Spain and Portugal, and in 1904 he founded an engineering office in Barcelona, which he ran together with the engineer Badia until 1906. The two engineers offered the complete installation of factories, gas and electricity plants, as well as studies and budgets. He earned special credit for the use of ball bearings in vehicle wheels, for which he applied for a patent. Likewise, he was even the owner of several patents in engineering in Barcelona, owning other patents such as for presses and mills as well as for electrolysis and electrical connections. After his retirement, he focused on his career as an engineer. In 1910, he collaborated in the layout and development of the Barcelona tramway, commissioning to lay a tram line in the outskirts of Barcelona. In 1911, the line from Barcelona to Rabassada, which was built with his participation, was inaugurated with a length of 7.8 km. In 1916, Steinberg and Paul Schröder founded a limited partnership with 28 employees for the construction and sale of machines of all kinds, which later became La Maquinista Hispania. With his company Udo Steinberg S. en. C. he devoted himself to the construction and sale of machines of all kinds.

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