Diego Tristán

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Diego Tristán (born 5 January 1976 in Seville) is a Spanish professional footballer currently playing for AS Livorno. A striker, he has represented the Spanish national team.

At his peak, Tristán was considered amongst the best strikers in Europe and would have signed for Real Madrid in 2000 had Lorenzo Sanz remained president. Instead he joined the Galician club Deportivo La Coruña in the summer of that year, being a replacement for the injured Roy Makaay.

The Andalucian player came from the youth team of Real Betis to RCD Mallorca where he impressed by scoring 18 goals. It earned him a transfer to Deportivo although he threatened to quit early in 2000-01 season when he found himself in and out of the side, but eventually he got a regular place and repaid coach Javier Irureta's faith in him by scoring freely. In total he produced 23 goals in his first campaign with Deportivo (19 Liga goals, 2 Champions League goals and 1 in both the Copa and Supercopa). The season after that he did even better, scoring 32 goals in total. His 21 Liga goals made him the top scorer of the La Liga while he added 6 in the Champions League and 5 in the Copa.

In the summer of 2002 he was picked by Spain for the 2002 World Cup, having debuted the previous year against Bosnia. Tristán has all the physical and technical attributes necessary for success at the top level. He is good in the air and takes up good positions when he is not in possession. He made his international debut on 2 June 2001. Although he wore Spain's Number 10 shirt for the 2002 World Cup in Korea/Japan, he got injured early in the campaign and did not manage to find the net.

Since then his career has been in decline. His injury made Roy Makaay the main striker of Deportivo again and the Dutch striker even won the European Golden Boot for his performances. Tristán could not adapt to his secondary role, but still scored 19 goals that season (9 in the Liga, 4 in the Champions League and 6 in the Copa).

But even since Makaay left the club, Tristán's form has never been like it was in 2002. In the 2003-04 season he played just 10 full matches and was taken off in 20 matches. His 18 entrances made him miss only 8 out of 56 matches, but he only produced 13 goals (8 in the Liga, 3 in the Champions League and 2 in the Copa del Rey). His strike against Monaco (in the notorious 8-3 defeat) was chosen by Eurosport as Champions League Goal of the Year.

In total Diego Tristán scored 87 goals in the shirt of Deportivo in 4 seasons. However there have been suggestions that Tristán doesn't live like a professional athlete and doesn't do all he's capable of to reach his best level. Eventually the club ran out of patience with him and he was released on 1 September 2006 along with team mate Lionel Scaloni.

After being linked with several clubs in Spain and overseas, including Bolton Wanderers, Tristán agreed to rejoin Mallorca (for whom he played from 1999-2000), but was released by the insular side on the 31st of January 2007, due to a lack of fitness, form and goals. [1]

He signed a one-year contract with Serie A side Livorno in July 2007, as the Italians searched for a replacement for Ukraine-bound Cristiano Lucarelli, who signed with Shakhtar Donetsk.

[edit] References

v • d • e Spain squad - 2002 FIFA World Cup 1 Casillas • 2 Torres • 3 Juanfran • 4 Helguera • 5 Puyol • 6 Hierro • 7 Raúl • 8 Baraja • 9 Morientes • 10 Tristán • 11 de Pedro • 12 Luque • 13 Ricardo • 14 Albelda • 15 Romero • 16 Mendieta • 17 Valerón • 18 Sergio • 19 Xavi • 20 Nadal • 21 Luis Enrique • 22 Joaquín • 23 Contreras • Coach: Camacho

He is currently playing for APOEL, Cyprus in the Cypriot First Division.