Francisco 'Paco' Buyo Sánchez is a Spanish retired footballer who played as a goalkeeper. Best known for his Sevilla and Real Madrid spells, he appeared in 542 La Liga matches, third all-time highest at the time of his retirement, winning 12 major titles with the latter club. A Spanish international during roughly one decade, Buyo represented the nation in two European Championships, being a backup on both occasions.
Club career
Buyo was born in Betanzos, A Coruña. At the age of fourteen he began playing football for local Ural CF, for which he appeared as both a goalkeeper and right winger during his one-year spell, achieving the feat of being both unbeaten between the goalposts and also the team's top goalscorer. Buyo's first professional club was RCD Mallorca, in the second division. After one season he joined Deportivo de La Coruña, where he would stay until 1980, with a loan to SD Huesca – while he performed military service in Jaca – in between. He made his debuts in La Liga in the 1980–81 season with Sevilla FC, being the starting goalkeeper from the beginning; he played there six years, appearing in 242 official matches and also winning his first Spanish national team callup. Buyo's performance at Sevilla made Real Madrid require his services, signing him in 1986 as a replacement for an ageing Miguel Ángel. In his first season he appeared in all 44 league games, the first being a 3–1 win over Real Murcia, being instrumental to the Merengues' national title; he would remain in the capital club until his retirement in 1997, aged 39. The local success Buyo met with Madrid could not be translated into international accolades, as they kept being eliminated in European Cup competition. However, in his first season, he did have a memorable performance against Michel Platini's Juventus F.C. in the round-of-16 of the 1986–87 edition: after the Spaniards won 1–0 in the first leg and the Italians did the same in the second meeting, the winner was decided in a penalty shootout, won by the former after he saved two of the opposition's shots; he earned his first Ricardo Zamora Trophy during his second league campaign after conceding only 23 goals in 35 league contests, and his second came in 1991–92 during which he played as many matches, with 27 goals against. Madrid would win two more league titles with Buyo in goal, the first of which came in the 1994–95 season, during which he also had a streak of 709 minutes without conceding a goal in league play, between 3 December 1994 and 12 February 1995, the fifth-longest streak ever in the Spanish league. In total, he kept 17 clean sheets throughout the course of the season. In his final year the club won another league, but he did not feature at all, as he was only third-choice behind Bodo Illgner and Santiago Cañizares; he retired with 542 first divisiongames played, the third-most behind another goalkeeper, Andoni Zubizarreta, and Eusebio Sacristán.
After retiring, Buyo had a short coaching spell with youth clubs Real Madrid cadetes and Real Madrid C, only returning to the benches in 2008 with Real Jaén's reserves. Additionally, he also worked with as a sports analyst in Al-Jazeera, contributing to its La Liga and UEFA Euro 2008 coverage.
