Football Player profile: Diego Forlán.
Diego Martin Forlan Corazo, was born on the nineteenth of May 1979 in Montevideo. Forlan was born into a family that had a rich football history. His father Pablo Forlan, was a Uruguayan international player. In his youth Forlan was more focused on tennis, but soon after, he decided to pursue his family’s tradition and concentrate on football. He played for various South American club’s but while he was at ‘Independiente’, he was signed by ‘Manchester United’ in January 2002 for a fee of around seven million pounds.
He made his debut for the club against ‘Bolton’. It took Forlan, twenty seven months to score his first goal, which came against, ‘Maccabi Haifa’ in a ‘Champions League’ match. Forlan though was inconsistent with his scoring, he had a habit of scoring important goals. He was one of the people who introduced the trend of removing your shirt, while celebrating your goals. In a game against ‘South Hampton’, after Forlan had removed his shirt, he didn’t have enough time to put it back on and when play resumed Forlan was running all over the pitch with his shirt in his hand. Forlans record of seventeen goals from ninety five games for ‘United’, was not very good for a striker of his class.
In the start of the 2004-2005 season, ‘United’ brought in Wayne Rooney, which could only mean bad news for Forlan. So on August 21st 2004, Forlan signed for ‘Villareal’. Forlan enjoyed a good spell at ‘Villareal’, even winning the ‘Pichichi Trophy’ with twenty five goals along the way in the 2004-2005 season. He also helped ‘Villareal’ to their first ever ‘Champions League’ spot.
In June 2007, Forlan was sold to ‘Athletico Madrid’. He was the prestigious ‘Pichichi’ in the 2008-2009 season again, scoring an astounding thirty two goals in thirty three matches. He also won the ‘European Golden Boot’ for the second time that season. Forlans most notable feat for ‘ Athletico Madrid’ came in the ‘Europa League’ in 2010. He scored the vital goal against ‘Liverpool’ to tie the match at two all, but in doing so he gave his side the crucial away goal, that saw they sail through to the finals. In the final’s against ‘Fulham’, Forlan scored twice to help ‘Athletico’ win the match two goals to one and be the first ever ‘Europa League’ winners.
Forlan made his debut, for his national side on the eleventh of June 2002. Forlan helped drawing a game against Senegal by scoring a fantastic volley and helping Uruguay come back from being three goals down. His miss from the penalty spot in the 2007, ‘Copa America’ cost Uruguay to lose the finals against Brazil. Forlan has since been a significant part of the Uruguay team, almost like fulcrum around which the team is based. His constant habit of scoring goals for his country, including vital goal’s, makes it impossible for the Uruguayan manager to field the team without Forlan leading them up front.
Over the years Forlan has scored two hundred and two goals in four hundred and sixty seven appearances for club teams and has scored twenty six goals in all international matches to date. However it is safe to say, that there are many more goal’s just waiting to be scored by the ace striker, Diego Forlan.
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