lit a candle 7h agoI don't really know anything about Uruguayan football but I saw this name somewhere and looked it up. 1959 South American champion, 86 years old. Don't know what to say, just didn't want it to pass with zero comments.
Their story
Julio César Dalmao Iglesias was a Uruguayan footballer, a tough central defender who won the South American youth championship in 1958 and the South American Championship, now the Copa América, with Uruguay in 1959. He played club football in Uruguay, Argentina and the United States, and is especially remembered at…
Julio César Dalmao Iglesias was a Uruguayan footballer, a tough central defender who won the South American youth championship in 1958 and the South American Championship, now the Copa América, with Uruguay in 1959. He played club football in Uruguay, Argentina and the United States, and is especially remembered at Club Atlético Cerro, where he began and where he was part of the best season in the club's history.
He was born in Montevideo on 5 May 1940 and came through the youth ranks at Cerro, the club from the Villa del Cerro district of the city. In 1960 Cerro finished as runners-up in the Uruguayan championship, losing the final to Peñarol, and Dalmao played 18 league matches that season.
His international career began early. He was in the Uruguay squad that won the 1958 South American youth championship in Chile under coach Juan Aguilar. In December 1959 he won the South American Championship played in Ecuador with the senior side, coached by Juan Carlos Corazo, grandfather of Diego Forlán. He won eleven caps for Uruguay between May 1959 and October 1968, without scoring.
In 1961 he moved to Argentina to join Vélez Sarsfield in Buenos Aires, where he stayed until 1966 and made 86 appearances. He then returned to Cerro, travelling with the club when it played in New York, where Cerro represented the city as the New York Skyliners. In 1970 he joined Huracán Buceo and was part of the side that rose to third place in the Uruguayan league that year. He played for Nacional for half a season in 1972 and finished his career at Rentistas, retiring in 1975.
Dalmao was described as an uncompromising, physically imposing centre back from an era before yellow and red cards. Life after football brought financial hardship, and in April 2011 a proposal was put before the Uruguayan Chamber of Representatives to grant him an honorary state pension. In January 2024, when his two former clubs Cerro and Vélez Sarsfield met in a friendly at the Estadio Luis Tróccoli, the trophy was named the Copa Julio Dalmao in his honour.
He died on Tuesday 20 October 2026, aged 86. His death was reported by El Observador, which recalled his continental titles with Uruguay and the lasting mark he left on Cerro. The cause of death was not made public.
Biography adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0, English and German articles) and El Observador. Wikipedia ↗
Photos
1Julio Dalmao in the Uruguay shirt
by People Forever
