Cruyff, Barça and the Wembley Dream Team – Two Decades On

By Liam Bambridge
Updated: 20 May, 2012

Julio Salinas

I never quite understood why Salinas was in the Dream Team, and I am sure that if he were around today, neither Guardiola nor Del Bosque would be playing him – think poor man’s Fernando Llorente.

However there is no denying his phenomenal goal scoring record throughout his nineteen year career for both club and country.

212 goals in nearly 500 appearances for Bilbao, Atletico Madrid, Deportivo la Coruna, Sporting de Gijon and Deportivo Alaves tells its own story, and his record for the national side was not too shabby either.

However he will be forever remembered by a generation of Spanish football fans for this miss here (35 seconds in) which many feel would have clinched victory in the 1994 World Cup quarter final against Italy, back in the days of their ‘perennial underachievers’ tag.

However although his international career ended soon afterwards, he kept on playing in La Liga until 2000, with a brief detour to Japan.

Since then he has concentrated in television work, most recently alongside the excitable Andres Montes on La Sexta’s La Liga coverage. And here of course. Love that wink, Julio.

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