Line-ups Both line-ups were nearly identical to those of the
Real Madrid and
Barcelona teams at the time. In fact, 8 of the players that started for Centro in the replay, would go on to start for Real Madrid in the
1924 Copa del Rey Final three months later, with the outcasts being
Olaso,
Caballero and strangely,
Bernabéu. On the other hand, 7 of the players that started for Catalonia in the first leg, had been on the line-up of the Barcelona team that won the
1922 Copa del Rey Final 5–1, with the outcasts being
Caicedo,
Trabal,
Martí and
Feliu. The only non-Spanish players to have partaken in this final were Argentina's
Emili Sagi-Barba of Catalonia and Switzerland's
Adolphe Mengotti of Centro.
Final The final was played on 24 February 1924 on neutral ground at the
San Mamés in
Bilbao, resulting in a tremendously competitive clash, with back-and-forth drama on the scoreboard, and up for grabs.
Félix Pérez open the scoring within the first 10 minutes of the game, and Centro hold on to the lead for nearly half an hour, until Barcelona player
Josep Samitier scored a three-minute brace to turn the score on its head. Centro kept their composure and found an equalizer just three minutes before the break thanks to
Monchín Triana. After the break, in the 57th minute,
Vicente Piera put the Catalans ahead once more, but the Castilian side managed to level the scores at 3–3 with 15 minutes through Triana, and the result remained unchanged until the end of regulation time, thus forcing
extra-time. There, Centro's semi-final hero,
Juan Monjardín, scored at the beginning of extra-time to put the Centro team in the lead at 4–3, but with two minutes remaining, when no one was expecting more goals anymore,
Emili Sagi-Barba leveled the scores at 4–4, thus salvaging a draw to Catalonia.
Replay Sagi's last-minute heroic actions meant that the game had to be repeated two days later, and the replay also was a roller coaster of emotions with back-and-forth drama as
Carulla made it 1–0 shortly after the start, but then the Centro team produced a come back of which Monjardín was the sole orchestrator, scoring twice to give a 2–1 lead to his side, but still before the break Samitier and Piera turned the score around yet again, which no longer moved after the break, thus Piera's goal turned out to be the match-winner, and Catalonia become the champions for the second time in the competition's history. ==Final details==