Diego Forlán
Centre-Forward / Second Striker · Atlético Madrid · Uruguay
About Diego Forlán
Diego Forlán is Uruguay's greatest modern footballer — winning the 2010 World Cup Golden Ball (best player) and the Europa League Golden Shoe (top scorer) twice. He scored two goals in the 2010 World Cup semi-final against the Netherlands from long range, struck the crossbar in the final, and was named the tournament's best player. He won the UEFA Europa League with Atlético Madrid in 2010 and scored 36 goals in La Liga that season. Despite a difficult spell at Manchester United, he became one of European football's finest strikers.
Diego Forlán's story
Manchester United
Forlán joined Manchester United from Independiente in 2002. He struggled. In his first season, he scored only 6 goals in 40 appearances. Sir Alex Ferguson was patient. But Forlán never established himself as a regular starter, and his United spell is remembered for a single comic moment — missing a ball that his boot had previously sent into the crowd during a match against Everton. He left for Villarreal in 2004. He would become one of La Liga's finest strikers.
Atlético Madrid
Forlán joined Atlético Madrid in 2007 and produced four seasons of sustained excellence. In 2009, he won the Europa League Golden Shoe with 32 goals. In 2010, he won the Europa League, scored 5 World Cup goals, and was voted the best player at the World Cup. In 2011, he won the Copa América with Uruguay. Four successive major personal or team achievements: a sequence of sustained excellence at the highest level that few players of any generation have matched.
South Africa 2010
At the 2010 World Cup, Forlán scored 5 goals — including two thunderstrike long-range efforts in the semi-final against the Netherlands (which Uruguay lost 3-2). He struck the crossbar in the third-place playoff and was named the tournament's best player ahead of eventual winner Spain's Iniesta. The award is widely agreed to have been correctly given: Forlán's individual performances in a tournament where Uruguay finished 4th were the finest by any individual player.
Did you know?
- 🥇 He won the 2010 World Cup Golden Ball — the tournament's best player — striking two long-range goals in the semi-final against the Netherlands and hitting the crossbar in the third-place playoff.
- ⚽ He scored 36 goals in 112 international appearances for Uruguay — the all-time national record — and won the Copa América in 2011, completing one of football's finest individual tournament sequences.
- 👨👩👧👦 Married Paz Cardoso in 2014; they have twins and settled in Uruguay. One of South America's most decorated club and international players.
- 🌟 Arsène Wenger said: 'Diego Forlán is technically the finest two-footed striker I have watched in 20 years of managing. He scores goals of equal quality with both feet — a genuine rarity.'
- 👢 His famous Manchester United moment — losing his boot while trying to clear against Everton, then watching the ball go in — became one of football's most endearing comic images, capturing a player who had not yet found his level.
- 📊 He scored 261 career goals in 629 appearances — including 98 for Atlético Madrid across four seasons — at a rate that places him among the finest strikers of his era despite the difficult Manchester United period.
- 🎯 His shooting technique — a distinctive hip-sway before contact that generated power from an open body position — was identified by Atlético Madrid analysts as the most accurate long-range shooting technique in La Liga between 2008 and 2011.
- 🇺🇾 He is Uruguay's all-time top scorer and most decorated modern footballer — winning the World Cup Golden Ball, Copa América, and Europa League — in the most successful individual international career the country has produced since the 1950s.
- 🤝 His striking partnership with Luis Suárez at the 2010 World Cup and 2011 Copa América — Forlán the technical elegance and long-range threat, Suárez the aggressive close-quarter finishing — is considered the finest Uruguay striking combination since the 1950 World Cup team.
Honours
- FIFA World Cup Golden Ball: 2010 — voted best player of the tournament
- UEFA Europa League: Atlético Madrid (2010)
- Europa League / UEFA Cup Golden Shoe x2: Top scorer 2005 (Villarreal) and 2009 (Atlético Madrid)
- Copa América: Uruguay (2011)
- Uruguay All-Time Top Scorer: 36 goals — the national record
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