Andrés D'Alessandro

Andrés D' Alessandro 2008

Andrés Nicolás D' Alessandro ( born April 15, 1981 in La Paternal, Buenos Aires ) is an Argentine football player. In addition to the Argentine he also has Italian citizenship.

Career

Association

Andrés D' Alessandro comes from the youth department of the River Plate, where he played for, among others, along with Javier Saviola. After climbing up to the pros, he remained loyal to the club for another five years before it for the record fee of 9.5 million euros to VfL Wolfsburg switched to the football league in 2003. There he played a total of 61 Bundesliga matches and scored eight goals. In January 2006, D' Alessandro joined on loan from Wolfsburg to the English Premier League club Portsmouth, where in 13 games he scored a goal until the end of the season and was instrumental in the relegation of the team. In the summer of 2006 vied next Portsmouth now but also more clubs to win the favor of the player and then followed by another lending to the Spanish side Real Zaragoza. After expiry of the loan period D'Alessandro moved permanently to Zaragoza and signed a contract until 2011. In October 2007, he was expelled after an altercation with Pablo Aimar from training.

For the Clausura 2008 season, Andrés D' Alessandro moved back to Argentina for club San Lorenzo de Almagro. A connected through San Lorenzo business group to have acquired 50 percent of the rights to D' Alessandro of Zaragoza for 3.5 million euros and now have the player on loan for a year at the Argentine Club. In July 2009, he has been blocked after an altercation with an opponent in the Argentine Cup final for 60 days.

In 2010 he was South America's Footballer of the Year and won with SC Internacional, the Copa Libertadores. In the Club World Cup 2010, he finished in third place with his team and was also awarded the Bronze Ball as the third best player of the tournament.

National

With the Argentina national football team the attacking midfielder won the gold medal at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens. So far, he completed 22 caps for his native country, but was not in the squad for the Albiceleste the Football World Cup 2006.