Spencer and Castronovo Are the Only Ones to Score Five Goals in a Single Peñarol Libertadores Match

Some records age well, and this is one of them: nobody in Peñarol's history has ever scored more than five goals against a single opponent in one Copa Libertadores match. And that's despite the black and yellow club having plenty of scoring history in the continental tournament, including the biggest rout in the competition's history.

Before getting into the individual numbers, it's worth recalling that unrepeatable match: in 1970, Peñarol put an 11-2 past Venezuela's Valencia, a result that remains, to this day, the largest margin of victory ever recorded in the Copa Libertadores. That night, the goals came from Alberto Spencer, Julio Losada, Nilo Acuña, Pedro Rocha (who also had four goals of his own) and even Argentine Ermindo Onega. It was one of those matches that feels like it belongs to another era.

The Two Who Reached Five

But the question that really matters here is different: who scored the most goals by himself in a single match? The answer has two names. The first is, of course, Alberto Spencer, who on July 7, 1963, scored five goals in Peñarol's 9-1 win over Chile's Everest. The Ecuadorian, who was already a nightmare for South American defenses, turned in one of his most memorable performances in aurinegro colors that day.

The second member of that exclusive club is Argentine Raúl Castronovo, who on March 22, 1971, also delivered five goals, in a 9-0 rout of Bolivia's The Strongest. Two matches, nearly eight years apart, and the same magic number: five.

The Four Goal and Three Goal Club

One step below, with four goals in a match, three other names show up. Spencer himself appears again on the list: on April 14, 1960, he had already scored four in a 7-1 win over Jorge Wilstermann, even before his 1963 feat. Years later, on March 11, 1975, Fernando Morena did the same in a 5-2 win over Unión Huaral. And in 1998, much more recently, José María Franco scored four against Oriente Petrolero, in a match with the added twist of being played outside the capital, at the Atilio Paiva Olivera stadium in Rivera.

With three goals in a match, there's a longer list, including Pedro Rocha (in that historic 11-2), Fernando Morena on two separate occasions, Carlos Aguilera against Bolívar in 1989, and José María Franco again, this time against Universidad Católica in 2000. And after 24 years without anyone matching that mark of three goals in a single Libertadores match, along came Maximiliano Silvera, who on April 10, 2024, scored three goals in Peñarol's 5-0 win over Caracas.

That's how the all time list of Peñarol scorers in a single Cup match shapes up: at the very top, Spencer and Castronovo with five; then Spencer again, Morena and Franco with four; and a well stocked group with three, where the most recent name is Silvera himself. It's a list spanning nearly seventy years of history, still waiting for someone bold enough to top the ceiling set by Spencer and Castronovo.