Fernando Morientes

He is the goal machine of Spain. He has played for several big teams and now playing in Valencia.

Fernando Morientes Sánchez (born April 5, 1976 in Cilleros, Cáceres, Spain) is a footballer who plays for Valencia. He has previously played for Liverpool, AS Monaco, Albacete, Real Zaragoza and most notably Real Madrid where he played between 1997 and 2005. He was a part of the successful Real Madrid sides that won the UEFA Champions League thrice between 1998 and 2002 (runner-up in 2004 with Monaco), and the Spanish Primera Liga twice.
Morientes plays as a striker, and is an able target man. His primary strength is his heading ability. Although lacking in pace, Morientes is skilled with both feet and is also a clinical finisher. He is a consistent goalscorer, but has been dogged by a number of injuries throughout his career.
At the age of 17, Morientes began his top-flight career at Albacete in 1993. He spent two seasons at the club, scoring 5 goals in 22 appearances. Morientes transferred to Real Zaragoza in 1995, where he spent two seasons. He scored goals regularly, and in his time at Zaragoza managed 30 goals in 66 appearances for the club.
Morientes' performances for Zaragoza caught the eye of Spanish giants Real Madrid. He transferred to the club in the summer of 1997 for approximately €6.6 million. Morientes made 33 appearances for the club, scoring 12 goals. He formed a successful strike partnership with Raúl González. Real Madrid also won the Champions League in this season. In the 1998/99 season, he performed very well, scoring 19 goals in the league and 25 goals in 38 appearances overall. He continued to perform well in the 1999/00 season, scoring 19 goals and finishing as Real's top scorer in a year where he also helped Real to their second Champions League title in 3 seasons, scoring in the 3-0 win over Valencia in an all-Spanish final. In the next season, Morientes won the first of two La Liga titles with Real Madrid, scoring 10 goals overall which included 4 in 8 appearances in the Champions League as Real lost in the semifinals to eventual winners Bayern Munich. He missed the tail-end of the La Liga season due to injury.
In the 2001/02 season in La Liga, Real failed to win the league, losing out to Valencia. However, Morientes continued his scoring form, scoring 18 league goals in only 25 starts, with 6 substitute appearances. He also scored 5 goals in Real's 7-0 demolition of Las Palmas, missing out on a double hattrick after missing from the spot late in the match. He finished second in the topscorers list for the season, tied with Patrick Kluivert and behind Diego Tristán. Real were successful in winning the Champions League after beating Bayer Leverkusen. Morientes played in the final and received a third Champions League winners medal.
In the summer of 2002, Real Madrid signed Brazilian superstar Ronaldo from Inter Milan. This fuelled rumours that Morientes would soon be leaving the club, with Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur reportedly interested. Barcelona were reportedly on the verge of signing Morientes for around €22 million, but the move fell through due to Barca's reluctance to match Morientes' wage demands. Eventually, Morientes decided to stay at Madrid, but as predicted he did not feature as much in the side after the arrival of Ronaldo, who was preferred to Morientes in the starting lineup along with Raul. Morientes also had a highly publicised spat with the then Real manager Vicente Del Bosque during a Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund in early 2003. In the January transfer window, despite continuous rumours of moves to Tottenham, Real Zaragoza,A.S. Roma and A.C. Milan, Morientes remained at the club for the remainder of the season. Real would go on to win the league and Morientes earned his second La Liga medal, making a total of 15 appearances (with 3 starts) and scoring 5 goals.
Morientes has been a reliable performer for his national team since 1998, when he scored twice in the first five minutes of his debut against Sweden. As of March 25, 2007, Morientes is third on the Spanish all-time topscorer's list with 27 goals in 47 appearances, behind former Real Madrid teammates Raúl (44 goals in 102 caps) and defender Fernando Hierro (who took the majority of Spain's free kicks and penalty kicks during his international career) (29 goals in 89 caps), although his goals-to-games ratio is higher than both Raúl and Hierro.
Morientes was picked in the Spanish squad for the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, where he scored 1 and 3 goals respectively. In the 2002 World Cup, he had a goal wrongly disallowed in Spain's quarterfinal defeat to South Korea.
He was a surprise omission at Euro 2000, but played at Euro 2004 where he scored 1 of only two goals that Spain could manage.
Morientes played for the Spanish squad during the qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup. However, due to his poor form for Liverpool in 2005/06 (he scored only 5 goals), he was not chosen by Spanish national team coach Luis Aragonés in the final squad for the tournament, although he was part of a 31-man initial squad named by Aragonés.
Following his return to form after moving to Valencia, Morientes was recalled to the national side. He scored his 27th goal for Spain in a Euro 2008 qualifier against Denmark on 24th March, 2007.
Morientes is also one of 4 players who are tied as Spain's all-time top scorers in FIFA World Cup history. He has scored 5 goals in the 2 World Cups he has featured in, with 2 goals in 1998 and 3 in 2002. The other Spaniards who have scored as many goals as him are Emilio Butragueño, Raúl and Fernando Hierro.

Valencia
5 April 1976
Source: Wikipedia