Where is riquelme playing

I'll go to my grave defending him. One of the most underrated to ever play the game. During the tail-end of his career, he remained a hero at the club he had supported as a boy, before he plucked up the energy to enjoy one final stint back where it all began, at Argentinos Juniors.

Sign in. All Football. By Oliver Dawnay. Updated: 25th June , pm. Lionel Messi is widely heralded as the best player to ever set foot on a football pitch.

After 43 minutes he again showcased both his raw ability and incredible vision by producing an outrageous backheel from the edge of the box for Marcos Llorente to run onto and score. Despite many of them being asleep across the Atlantic at the time, Atletico fans had a new, homegrown talent to get excited about. Despite those promising pre-season performances, he would have to wait until September 1, with Atleti locked at against Eibar having fallen behind to two late goals, to make his competitive debut, replacing Thomas Lemar.

He made an immediate impact, though, very nearly scoring with a goal-bound shot that was blocked at the last second before Thomas Partey netted a late winner for Simeone's side. Then, he [Simeone] reassured me by telling me to play as I would in training and that I was going to create a goal," Riquelme told the Atletico website in the aftermath of his senior bow.

I hope there are more opportunities and I will work for them. Riquelme was deployed on the right-hand side in that Eibar match, but there is still some debate as to his best position going forward. It is agreed that he will likely spend his career playing in an attacking role behind a central striker, but whether that will be centrally or on either wing has yet to be determined. That flexibility has already seen comparisons drawn with Antoine Griezmann; a player who Riquelme cites as one of his heroes, with the teenager even replicating one of the France international's celebrations when scoring for the Atletico youth teams last season.

In this way, his diagonal runs, preferably from the left, end in him shooting or passing to a team-mate. I hope the people have enjoyed it alongside me. I tried to have a good time. There is a famous saying in South America that "Brazilians love to hate Argentinians, while Argentinians hate to love Brazilians," but when it comes to Juan Roman Riquelme, stereotypes and conventions rarely apply.

The former Argentina international became a footballing legend during two spells at Boca Juniors, in between a dazzling spell in Spain for Barcelona and especially Villarreal in the mids. Riquelme's unique, casual brilliance was a perfect example of jogo bonito the beautiful game , but he never represented a Brazilian team in his career. Instead, fans in the country only ever got to watch him do damage to their teams. And yet, take a look at the team sheets from the recent Copa Sao Paulo and you will see that, six years since his retirement, Riquelme's name still echoes all around Brazilian football Attracting crowds of 10, fans, scouts from Europe's big guns and powerful agents, the Copa Sao Paulo opens the curtain to the football season in Brazil every January.

It's the country's premier youth tournament, but it's also widely regarded as its most democratic. This season's edition featured teams from every corner of the continent-sized nation, pitching Brazilian giants against barely-heard-of minnows over three weeks across the state of Sao Paulo. With no top-flight matches drawing attention, the Copinha, as it is affectionately known, is the main source of domestic football on TV in January. For many players, the U20 competition is seen as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get themselves into the limelight and, with some luck, earn a lucrative move.

Rewind a year, and Gabriel Martinelli found himself in that very position, making headlines with Brazilian third-tier club Ituano; now he's bagging goals for Arsenal in the Premier League. The Brazilian wonderkid is just the latest talent to successfully take a path that was also followed by the likes of Neymar, Gabriel Jesus, Roberto Firmino, Casemiro and Marquinhos.

However, with over 3, teenagers hoping to achieve the same goal, it's not easy to stand out. Riquelme Sousa Silva was among those who impressed this season, netting six goals in five games, including a hat-trick, to help Atletico Goianiense record their best-ever campaign in the Copinha.

Yet, as he had somehow been anticipating, most of the questions he took afterwards had nothing to do with his killer instinct inside the box. My father accepted, even though he didn't know much about him and wasn't really into football. Raised in Aguiarnopolis, a countryside town in Tocantins state with a population of just over 5,, Atletico's year-old striker says he had never met any other Brazilians with the same name.