Guti

He is a Spanish football player. He plays as a midfielder or as a striker.

Guti, full name José María Gutiérrez Hernández (born October 31, 1976 in Madrid) is a Spanish football player who currently plays for Real Madrid. He began his career there in the cantera and later moved up to the senior side where he is one of three captains. He wears number 14.
As a child Guti was interested in tennis and books on sports. He began playing for Real Madrid in 1994 in the cantera. In 1995 he was called up to the U-18 and won the Eurocup with them. The same year he debuted for the senior side on December 21 against Seville, Real Madrid won 4-1. He finished the season with 1 goal in 9 appearances.
In 1997 Guti added two trophies to his cabinet, La Liga and the Spanish Super Copa. He only played 17 games that season and scored 1 goal as well. Guti was again called upon to help the U-21 side lift the Eurocup in 1998. This capped off a brilliant season with Madrid as well after they won the UEFA Champions League and the Intercontinental Cup.
The 1999-2000 season started badly for Guti: struggling with the responsibility of replacing Clarence Seedorf, and was sent off at FIFA Club World Championship against Raja Casablanca for kicking a fallen adversary. But then Guti recovered and helped Madrid tremendously when they raised the UEFA Champions League Cup, he scored 6 goals in 28 games. The following year he had his best scoring season for Madrid, 14 goals in 31 games. The goals contributed to Madrid's 27th league title and Spanish Super Cup.
After the purchase of Ronaldo, Guti was placed in the midfield and his goalscoring rate went down drastically. During the next two seasons he only scored 4 goals in 29 games and 4 goals in 34 games. Along with the goals came another UEFA Champions League Cup, UEFA Supercup, and Intercontinental Cup. Then in 2003, he won the League and Spanish Super Cup.
Guti caused controversy when he was caught on camera verbally abusing a group of Villarreal fans as he stepped off the team bus by referring to them as paletos, a pejorative term which translates between "bumpkin" and "chav". Guti has since received a torrent of abuse from Villarreal fans whenever he has played in their town, to a chorus of ¡paleto, paleto!. Other Valencian teams have come out in support of Villarreal, as well as fans from other teams such as Atlético de Madrid. In a later interview with AS, Guti denied calling people from Villarreal paletos but then went on to say that the term is not as offensive as people have made out.
During 2004-05, Guti had his lowest season in terms of goal scoring, as he failed to score for the first time in seven seasons with the first team. He only managed to score a goal in the international against San Marino in February 2005.
In 2005-06, he played 43 games and scored 6 goals (4 in Spanish league and 2 in Champions League).
With the election of Ramon Calderon as President of the club and his subsequent vow to bring AC Milan's Brazilian star Kaká to Real Madrid, Guti's future at the Bernabeu appeared insecure. He was linked with a move away from The Merengues, and cross-town rivals Atlético Madrid showed a keen interest in getting his services. In the end, Guti decided to stay with Real while Kaká stayed with AC Milan.
On 19th August 2007, Guti was linked with a move to Sven Goran Eriksson's Manchester City. Reports suggest that he will sign for a nominal fee.

Real Madrid
31 October 1976
Source: Wikipedia