[1] He is best known for being the first-ever player to play for both FC Barcelona and Real Madrid, which he achieved when he moved out from Catalonia to the capital for study purposes.
[6] Due to the absences of some of the first-team players, he made his debut with the first team in a friendly match against Club Español (now known as RCD Espanyol) on 1 December, at the age of 16 years and 80 days.
[1] His youth did not go unnoticed by the chroniclers of the time, as the journalist Xavier G. Luque recalled in April 2011 in the pages of La Vanguardia: "Albéniz should not have been allowed to play such a violent and dangerous game due to being a minor".
[15] In his third and final match for the white club on 8 December, he helped Madrid to a 3–2 victory over a team called Instituto Cisneros in the semifinals of the Ciudad Lineal trophy, which was played in the context of a sports festival organized by the director of the Velodrome.
[15] It was around this time that Albéniz began his refereeing career as he then oversaw two matches of Madrid on 31 December and on 2 January 1913, both against Racing Club de France.
[17] On 2 July 1922, Albéniz co-founded the National Committee of Referees and was then elected as its first president,[3][5] a position that he held for over a year until 1923, when he was replaced by Carlos Dieste.
[1][6][20] Like his sister Laura and his mother Rosa, Albéniz maintained a great friendship with the composer and pianist Manuel de Falla.
[1][18] A renowned chemical engineer, he also stood out as a lecturer, and at some point in the mid-1920s, he embarked on a career as a diplomat, becoming an ambassador for Spain in the League of Nations.
[1][6] Transferred in his last years of life to Estoril, Portugal, Albéniz died there in 1941, at the age of 56, due to complications with hypertension.