English Premier League - Player Profile: Hugo Rodallega
Hugo Rodallega Martinez is a professional footballer who was born in El Carmelo in Colombia. His current club is Wigan Athletic F.C who plays in the English Premier League. When Hugo was young, his family migrated to the Central American country of Mexico. In his teens, the young Colombian joined Club de Futebol Monterrey in 2006. However, this tenure with Monterrey ended in disappointment as he failed to achieve any success and was loaned onto Club Atlas for the rest of the 2006/2007 season.
At the start of the 2007/2008 season, Hugo was sold by Apertura to Necaxa. During his time at Necaxa, Rodallega scored nine goals in fifteen games which propelled him to newer heights in the goal scoring charts while playing for Mexico’s football league.
On 20th of December, 2008 Necaxa revealed that they were holding negotiations with Wigan Athletic as they were interested in the Colombian striker. The agreement that eventually was struck between the two football clubs resulted in Hugo’s transfer to Wigan for a transfer fee which amounted to around 4.8 million Euros. In January 2009, Wigan’s manager Steve Bruce stated that club had signed the young forward. However, the deal depended on whether the English government issued a work permit to Hugo Rodallega.
Hugo’s first game for Wigan after being granted the work permit was against Liverpool F.C on 28th of January, 2009. Rodallega featured during the game as a 77th minute substitute. The Colombian impressed all and sundry in his first outing as a Wigan player and hit the bar which almost earned his new club three points against English league giants Liverpool. The youthful striker scored his first goal for Wigan against West Bromwich Albion on 9th of May, 2009 and then scored again in the same week against Manchester United on 13th May, 2009.
Hugo’s third goal for Wigan came against Portsmouth - a match that finished one goal to zero in favour of Wigan Athletic. At the end of Rodallega’s first season at Wigan United, his new club finished at the 11th spot in the English Premier League. In the first match of the 2009/2010 season for Wigan, Rodallega scored his first goal of the new league campaign against Aston Villa; a match that Wigan eventually won by a difference of two goals.
The skilful striker also scored an important winner for Wigan in their 1-0 win over West Ham United on 12th of September, 2009. On 26th September, 2009, Rodallega scored against Chelsea F.C. in an astonishing win by Wigan over premier league title contenders. Moreover, this goal was followed up by two remarkable strikes against Burnley in an English Premier League away win for the Latics. Hugo again scored for Wigan in November of 2009, against Sunderland in the 75th minute of the match.
His goal scoring exploits benefitted Wigan as they survived a tight relegation fight to maintain their spot in the English Premier League.
As far as Rodallega’s international career is concerned, he became Colombia’s all time top scorer in the South American qualification for the Under-20 World Cup. During the qualification round for the tournament, he scored eleven times in nine appearances. In doing so, he surpassed Luciano Galletti’s record of nine international goals in U-20 World Cup qualification for Colombia. Hugo’s first international senior team appearance for Colombia came in a friendly match against Venezuela.
He also was forced to play as a goal keeper in the last minutes of Colombia’s Copa America match against Venezuela because his native country’s first choice goal keeper was shown a red card and as a result was sent off. The sending off meant that one of the on-field players had to assume the goalkeeping role as Colombia had already made their full quota of three substitutes.
Hugo will be looking to improve his goal scoring record for Wigan in the upcoming 2010/2011 season, as the Latics will once again try to maintain their premier league status.
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