Diego Forlan Finds the Net Easily, But Having a Time Locating a New Club

(Photo by Jasper Juinen/Getty Images)

Forlan won the Pichichi in his first season with the Villarreal club, helping the club to its first-ever Champions League qualification.

The Uruguayan international went on to score 54 goals in 103 games for the club before Atletico Madrid came calling with a sizeable €21 million offer for his services.

In two seasons with the capital club, Forlan has notched 48 goals in just 69 games—a record that compares favourably with anyone else in Spain or Europe.

But that hasn’t been enough to make him the focus of Europe’s biggest clubs.

For many, the memory of his underwhelming period at United acts as a deterrent to any transfer bid.

For his part, Forlan is remarkably sanguine about the failures of his career:

“Every coach has his own players,” Forlan said. “Maybe I was not the player that Sir Alex [Ferguson] liked, which is fair enough. He can choose—that's why he's the manager.”

For the others, Forlan’s age is the problem. The 30-year-old doesn’t look like a particularly attractive proposition considering the limited number of years left in his career, particularly for English clubs concerned by his failure to adapt to the Premier League, when his 21-year-old teammate Aguero could be purchased for just a slightly higher fee.

But more so than most players currently being bandied about in the rumour pages of newspapers, Forlan’s record should excite any club serious about their aspirations—and with the money to back it up.

Aside from his formidable goal-scoring record, the Montevideo-born man is a truly two-footed finisher—last season he scored 16 goals with his right foot and 15 with his left—with the knack of producing the spectacular.

Forlan doesn’t just rely on his teammates for goals; he has often created his own openings out of nothing. As deadly inside the box as he can be 30 yards out, Spanish defences have had five years to nullify Forlan’s threat and have so far failed miserably.

Content to stay with Atletico, who will enter the Champions League in the playoff round this year, Forlan would nonetheless be intrigued by a second opportunity to prove his worth with a European heavyweight.

"Diego is at Atletico, very happy there because he has been treated wonderfully,” his father Pablo told Spanish station COM radio this week. “But, without a doubt, playing in a team like Barca would interest any player.”

It might interest him, but it looks like Forlan will have to wait until the future of players he has regularly outscored—particularly Eto’o and Villa—is resolved before he can mull over any proposals of his own.

All things considered, a transfer this summer looks unlikely.

“In football, you cannot predict what will happen,” Pablo admitted, “but neither myself nor Diego want to talk about something that has not happened. He is happy at Atletico."

And Atletico are happy to have him.

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