Claudio Riaño vs Alumni, Argentino A 2010-11 - Golazo

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On 6 March 2011 Talleres de Córdoba faced Alumni de Villa María the regionalised third division of Argentine football. It was a hugely significant game for the hosts, who would secure qualification to the promotion playoffs with a win.

Talleres had fallen a long way since they became the first (and to date only) indirectly affiliated team to win a major trophy when they won the defunct Copa Conmebol back in 1999. They were relegated from the Primera División in 2004 despite finishing in 3rd place in the Clausura. They were then relegated from the 2nd tier in 2009.

In the end they managed to record an exciting 3-2 win against Alumni, the highlight of the game being this estraordinary overhead kick from Claudio Riaño.

Part of the Golazo series.

What ever happened to? Nicolás Medina

A rare sight, Medina in Sunderland colours.

In 2000 Sunderland signed a 19 year old player for £3.5 million from Argentinos Juniors, a club renowned for producing quality players like Diego Maradona, Sergio Batista, Claudio Borghi, Fernando Redondo and Juan Román Riquelme.

The player soon worked his way into the Sunderland first team, eventually making 177 appearances for the club and scoring 23 goals. This player was of course Julio Arca and his signing was such a success that Peter Reid could not resist splashing out another £3.5 million on another Argentinos Juniors player the following summer describing the latest signing as "the complete midfield player".

The second player was Nicolás Medina, who had starred alongside Arca in the Argentina U-21 team that had just won the 2001 FIFA World Youth Championship. Medina did not find himself thrown into the first team like Arca had been, in fact he hadn't even made his debut for the black cats by December 2002 when he received a surprise call up to a Argentina national team training camp.

Peter Reid had never given any satisfactory reason for why such an expensive signing was not getting the slightest chance to play for the club, and his successor, Howard Wilkinson was no better, giving the bizarre explanation that "The evidence suggests that Nicolas hasn't got it because the previous manager didn't pick him".

Medina had made only a single appearance for the club, in a FA Cup tie against Bolton Wanderers. By the summer of 2003, the management had lost faith with the player and he was farmed out on loan to Spanish 2nd division side CD Leganés for the 2003-04 season at the end of which Leganés were relegated to the regionalised 3rd division.

Medina was then called up by Argentina manager Marcelo Bielsa for the 2004 Summer Olympics, where he played in 3 of Argentina's games alongside players such as Javier Mascherano, Carlos Tevez, Javier Saviola, and Andrés D'Allesandro. Argentina beat Paraguay 1-0 in the final and Medina collected his Olympic Gold medal to go in his collection alongside his World U-21 medal.

Later that summer he was included in the Argentina squad for the Copa América 2004 along with recent Birmingham City reject Luciano Figueroa. Medina didn't play for the team during the tournament, but he didn't have long to wait until his full international debut.

On 4 September 2004 Medina was called up to the Argentina national team where he played in a 3-1 win over Peru in Lima. Highlighting an absurd situation where a player could supposedly be good enough to play for the Argentina national team, yet so bad that he failed to get a single league game for Sunderland in 3 seasons, despite the fact that they had spent the majority of that time embroiled in relegation dogfights. This single appearance for the Argentina national team was undoubtedly the high water mark of his career.

Medina did actually play
for other teams, yet I couldn't
find a single picture of him actually playing,
not least because there is another player
called Nicolás Medina from Chile
who is familiar with the concept
of actually playing club football.

Sunderland finally got him off their books, releasing him on a free transfer to Real Murcia of the Spanish 2nd division, and in so doing made him the most expensive signing not to have played a single league game for the club.

After one season with Murcia he returned to Argentina, where joined Primera División side Rosario Central in 2005. He only made 3 first team appearances for Central before joining Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata in 2006. Gimnasia loaned him out to a succession of clubs including Nueva Chicago where he only made a single appearance, and Talleres de Córdoba of the Argentine 2nd division. In 2007 he rejoined Gimnasia where he only played in 7 of their games during the entire 2007-08 season.

In 2009 he joined Chilean side O'Higgins, but failed to settle there, returning to Argentina in 2010 to play for 2nd division side Tiro Federal. In the summer of 2010 he was released by Tiro Federal and is now a 28 year old free agent. 

Medina will not be remembered for his playing abilities by Sunderland fans, except those die hard supporters that saw him play in that FA Cup game or turned out to watch the reserves between 2001 and 2003. He is remembered as a remarkable waste of money and a player who utterly failed to live up to expectations.

Looking back through the Argentina squad lists for the 2001 U-21 World Cup and the Olympic squad of 2004 there are understandably several players who's careers never reached the heights achieved by Tevez, Mascherano and Saviola, yet none have experienced a career nosedive as spectacular as that of Nicolás Medina.

Part of the What ever happened to? series.

What ever happened to? Fernando Pasquinelli

Pasquinelli playing for Aberdeen.

In 2000 Leicester City signed a young Argentine striker called Fernando Pasquinelli from Argentine giants Boca Juniors. He never played for the Leicester City first team and when manager Martin O'Neill left the club later that year to take over at Celtic, Pasquinelli was one of the first players cleared out by new manager Peter Taylor.

Pasquinelli returned to Boca Juniors but was immediately loaned out to Argentine 3rd division side San Telmo where he actually made his league debut, never having taken to the field for Boca or Leicester. In 2002 he joined Temperley in the same division.

Pasquinelli got his chance to return to the UK when he was signed by Scottish Premier league side Livingston in 2003, where he played 35 games in all competitions, scoring 5 goals. At the end of the season he joined Aberdeen where he made another 10 appearances, scoring 3 goals before tearing a muscle in December 2004. This spell in Scotland can be considered the most successful part of his career, but it came to an end in 2005 when he was released by Aberdeen because of the injury that had kept him out of action for over 3 months.

Pasquinelli playing for Sarmiento
in the Argentine 3rd division.

Upon his return to Argentina he signed for Talleres in the national 2nd division for a season, the highest level he ever played at in Argentina. In 2007 he returned to Temperley for another stint but was released after six months, which is not surprising considering  this miss. His next club was Platense back in the 2nd division for a short stint towards the end of 2007.

In 2008 he played for LDU Portoviejo in Ecuador for a few months before joining Sarmiento back in the Argentine 3rd division where he spent the longest stint he has managed at any of his clubs to date, netting 19 league goals over two seasons.

In 2010 he was signed by yet another Argentine 3rd division side, this time Tristán Suárez, where he currently plays.

Part of the What ever happened to? series.