Virgilio Lobregat

Virgilio Lobregat (23 May 1901 – 30 August 1944) was a Filipino sportsman best known as a football player. He played for Bohemian S.C., Manila Nomads Sports Club and Casino Español de Manila. At international level he competed for the Philippines national football team at the Far Eastern Games. During World War II, he opposed and fought the Imperial Japanese Army as he joined a guerrilla led by Juan Miguel Elizalde. He was executed in August 1944 along with Elizalde and 70 other prisoners at the Manila North Cemetery.

Early life and education Virgilio Lobregat was born on 23 May 1901 in Mula, a Spanish municipality in the Region of Murcia, being the fourth and youngest child of a Spanish father Celso Llobregat y Rague and a Filipina mother Antonia Zalvidea y Asunción Cruz. He only stayed there shortly as his family took him and moved to the Philippine Islands in 1904.

La Salle basketball team in 1914, Lobregat sitting first from rightLobregat, after being settled in the country, attended the La Salle Nozaleda institute in second grade, in 1911. During his school years he demonstrated early signs that he was already a phenomenal athlete succeeding in multiple sports and became the nucleus of the champion teams that La Salle turned out to be in that decade. He then graduated from La Salle high school in 1918.

Sporting career Football

Virgilio Lobregat is regarded as the best Filipino player in the pre-World War II period after Paulino Alcántara by the PFF and one of the best Filipino football players of all time. He was given the recognition by the PFF with the title of "Football Player of the Half Century". He was known for his striking ability and his great understanding of the game. Lobregat, still in his teenage years, became part of the Bohemian Sporting Club where he spent most of his football career at and was one of the most important component of the team that dominated the late 1910s and 1920s. In his first years at the club he was able to distinguish himself from the others as an outstanding athlete, at , playing as a forward and successfully filled in the role left by Alcántara after he left Bohemian. Lobregat helped the club win the National Open Championship five times in 1918 completing Bohemian's incredible four-peat (1915, 1916, 1917, 1918) and also led the team to another three-peat run in 1920, 1921 and 1922 before winning his last Championship title, the club's 10th, in 1927.

World War II, death and legacy His name, among the 29 martyrs, honored with a historical marker. Throughout his life, Lobregat was mostly known for his incredible athleticism while playing various sports but he also displayed true heroism and patriotism during the war. During the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II he joined Juan Miguel Elizalde and his guerrilla and fought against the Japanese along with Elizalde and 70 other prisoners at the Manila North Cemetery. According to his grave also at the same cemetery, Lobregat died on 30 August 1944.

Lobregat, basketball player Jacinto Cruz and swimmer Teófilo Yldefonso were named the "Outstanding Athletes of Half-A-Century" by the Philippine Amateur Athletic Federation. He was also named as the "Football Player of the Half Century" in the 1970s by the Philippine Football Association. A football field in Makati, where the statue of Benigno Aquino Jr. is situated, was named after him and the Lobregat Cup, a football tournament held from the late 1940s to 1970s, was as well named in his honor.

Honors Bohemian S.C. United States Philippines Championship (5): 1918, 1920, 1921, 1922, 1927

Philippine national football team Far Eastern Championship Games: (Silver medal) 1919, 1925