World Football Stars | Morena, the vital player for Penarol with his decisive goals!

Born in Ferbruary 2, 1952, in Montevideo.
Fernando Morena deserves more credit than just as a key goal-scorer-important as this has proved-in Pearl’s return to the peak of world football.

Uruguay’s record goal scorer is the man who persuaded the Pearl directors that veteran Hugo Bagnulo was the ideal choice to guide the club back to World Club Cup glory in 1982.

Bagulo, a former national team manager, back in the time, was saying he wanted to return to retirement. Certainly, the powerful centre-forward could point to more than 600 reasons for wanting Bagnulo to stay on.

For it was during that autumn of 1982, Morena showed the explosive return to form which took him past a career total of 600 goals.

Ever a man for the occasion, Morena reached that figure with two goals against the club who discovered him as a teenager, River Plate of Montevideo.

The date was August 1, and River Plate were visitors in the historic Centenario stadium. Morena began the game on a total of 598 and moved to 599 when he converted a 54th-minute penalty, which beat this former Peñarol team-mate and goalkeeper, Walter Corbo, all ends up.

Goal No. 600 should have arrived six minutes later when Peñarol were awarded another penalty. But this time Morena missed and so it wasn’t until two minutes from time that he shot in the 600th.

Uruguayan football has seen some legendary forwards like Hector Scarone, Pedro Cea, Atilio Garcia (a naturalized Argentine who was Morena’s predecessor as all-time record goal-scorer), Juan Hohberg, Alberto Spencer and Jean Schiaffino. But in terms of goals Morena is the greatest of all.

The surprise is that he’s rarely reproduced that form for the national team. He made little impact in 1974 when Uruguay last reached the World Cup finals and over the past few years has never gone out of his way to show his enthusiasm for the famous “Celeste” shirt.

His club achievements speak for themselves, for Morena scored six of their 15 goals in the Libertadores first round and semi-final group-despite missing a penalty against River Plate of Argentina and then grabbed the all-important winner in the final against Cobreloa.

That just added to the legend.

For Morena has always been setting records. He has been top scorer in the Uruguayan league more than any other player, on seven occasions, and ran up a championship record of seven goals on one game against Huracan Buceo in 1978.

In 1975 he totaled 34 league goals to overtake the 42-year-old record of 33 by Pedro Young-and then he improved the mark further to 36 goals in 1978. Soon after his return to Petrol from Spain’s Valencia in 1981 he overtook Garcia’s league record of 209 goals.

Morena could have had more goals but for his odd record with penalties. That miss against River Plate in the Libertadores Cup wasn’t a one-off. Back in 1975 Morena had two penalties saved by Pedro Zape, of Colombia, in a South American championship semi-final.

Uruguay won the game 1-0 thanks to a run-of-play goal from Morena, but since Colombia had won their home leg 3-0, the Uruguayans went out…

That must have been one of the moments when Morena wondered if he had made the right choice back in his teens, when he nearly entered the Roman Catholic priesthood. That he decided ultimately to prey on defenders, rather than pray for them, has at least kept thousands of souls happy!

From a boy, however, Morena was a fan not of Penarol club with which his name will always be linked-but of their great rivals, Nacional. However, when it came to moving on up the ladder, having made his name originally as a winger with little River Plate, of Montevideo, it was Peñarol who won the race for his signature.

In two and a half seasons Morena had already seered 51 goals and earned a national team debut and Peñarol were not to be disappointed with the manner in which he fulfilled his potential. Pearl won the championship four times before Morena left for Spain in 1979. But their dream of seeing their new superstar lead them back to glory in the Libertadores and World Club cups was never turned into reality.

The nearest they came was in 1974 and 1976 when Peñarol were eliminated at the semi-final stage.

That Morena stayed with Peñarol so long was remarkable, for plenty of Spanish clubs wanted him, as well as several from Brazil and Argentina. The problem was that Peñarol owned only a part- share in their centre-forward who still belonged, in part, to little River Plate.

Penarol desperately needed the cash a sale would bring, but it wasn’t until Rayo Vallecano came along in 1979 that the offer was big enough to cover both their needs and River Plate’s

Rayo are the third club in Madrid and had just won promotion to the Spanish first division for the first time in their history. Morena was to be their one star, their survival lifeline, and he lived up to all the trust by settling in quickly and ramming 20 goals in his opening season.

He was paid well for the job too, and Rayo couldn’t afford to keep him because, despite his efforts, they were relegated.

Valencia saw Morena as an ideal partner up front for Mario Kempes and snapped him up. But although Morena scored 39 goals for them in the next season in league, European tournament and other senior matches, he wasn’t happy there.

That’s why, a year ago, Morena returned home to Montevideo to rejoin Pearl and wear once more the famous black and yellow stripes.

Net that Penarol could really afford him, now. They delayed paying the outstanding £200,000 instalment this past autumn for so long that Valencia complained to FIFA.

The International Federation suspended Morena until the clubs had sorted out their cash squabble and until Peñarol had obtained a major bank loan to clear the debt with Valencia. It was indicative of Morena’s value, not only as a goal-scorer but as an inspirational figure, that while he was “resting”, Peñarol lost their league unbeaten record, going down 1-0 to Rampla Juniors.
Pearl then paid up -fast!
And, clearly, they haven’t regretted it.

Fernando Morena`s Goals Record!

Playing for…
River Plate (Montevideo) —–1969-1972 / 51
Penarol———-1972-1979 / 347
Rayo Vallecano (Spain)———1979-1980 / 20
Valencia———–1980-1981 / 39
Peñarol——1981-1982 / 85
Uruguay——-1972-1979 / 79
Other representative games….1970-1982 / 8
Total
629

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Sports vision + Plus / Champions Hour in activity since 2013
References: World Soccer / February 1983

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