Diego Forlan | Biography, 2010 World Cup, & Facts

Diego Forlán, (born May 19, 1979, Montevideo, Uruguay), Uruguayan football (soccer) player who was awarded the Golden Ball as the standout player at the 2010 World Cup.

His father, Pablo Forlán, had played for Uruguay in the 1966 and 1974 World Cup tournaments, and his maternal grandfather, Juan Carlos Corazo, had been a player with Club Atlético Independiente in Argentina. The latter became Diego’s first senior team after he played at home as a youth for Club Atlético Peñarol and Danubio Fútbol Club. He was also a skilled tennis player before focusing on football.

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Forlán’s progress with Independiente was such that England’s Manchester United paid the equivalent of £7.5 million (about $9.8 million) for him in early 2002, but he seldom scored in two seasons with the club and earned the nickname “Diego Forlorn.” Manchester traded him in 2004 to Spain’s Villarreal CF. Suddenly his Independiente-era scoring prowess returned, and he won the Pichichi Trophy as the leading scorer in La Liga—Spain’s top football league—with 25 goals. He added 13 goals in 2005–06 and 19 in 2006–07. Villarreal traded Forlán to Atlético Madrid in 2007, and he won the Pichichi again, in 2008–09, with 32 goals. In both 2004–05 and 2008–09, he earned the Golden Shoe as the top scorer in all of Europe. In 2010 Forlán scored the winning goal for Atlético Madrid in the Europa League final against England’s Fulham FC. He joined Inter Milan for the 2011–12 Italian Serie A football season before signing with Internacional of Brazil in July 2012. The team’s financial troubles led Forlán to surprisingly join the Japanese club Cerezo Osaka in January 2014. In July of the following year, he signed with Club Atlético Peñarol, the club for which he had first played as a youth. In 2016 he joined Mumbai City FC of the Indian Super League, and in 2018 he played part of a season with Kitchee of the Hong Kong Premier League. The following year Forlán retired from competitive play.

Forlán made his World Cup debut in 2002, but Uruguay failed to advance past the tournament’s group stage. His greatest success came at the 2010 World Cup, where he almost single-handedly guided Uruguay to the semifinal round. Although Uruguay lost its semifinal, his volley against Germany in the third-place match (which Uruguay ultimately lost) was voted the tournament’s finest goal. He also was the World Cup’s co-top scorer, with five goals. In July 2011 Forlán made his record 80th appearance with the Uruguayan national team, during the Copa América tournament. That month he led Uruguay to its 15th Copa title, joining his father and his maternal grandfather as winners of South America’s most-prestigious continental championship. Forlán was a part of the Uruguayan team that advanced to the round of 16 at the 2014 World Cup, but the aging star appeared in only two of his country’s four games and failed to score a goal in the tournament. He retired from the Uruguayan national side in March 2015.