Meet The Players

These are the players from the last Free Kick Masters event held in 2008 at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas.

Alvaro Recoba

Álvaro Alexander Recoba Rivero, nicknamed "El Chino" (born March 17, 1976) is a Uruguayan football forward who has played in the Italian Serie A since 1997, and participated at the 2002 World Cup with the Uruguay national team.

Born in Montevideo, Recoba started his career in Uruguay's Danubio. After several years there, he was transferred to Nacional, one of Uruguay's most traditional teams, where he played the 1996/1997 season. The following season, he was sold to Inter, where he has played since his arrival to Europe, except for a six month-stint at Venezia.

Recoba made his debut for Inter on the same day as Ronaldo, against Brescia in San Siro, scoring two goals in the last ten minutes of the match: a powerful 40-yard shot that flew past the keeper, and a free kick into the top corner, goals which allowed Inter to come back and win the match 2-1. In the same season, he scored a lob from only a short distance into the opponent's half.

After his tenure at Venezia, which lasted less than one season, Recoba returned to Inter. In January 2001, he renewed his contract with club last until 30 June 2006. But during the same month he faced problems with a fake passport, losing the Italian nationality he received in 1999. He was punished with a one-year ban, which was later reduced to four months on appeal.^{[citation needed]}

Recoba has had other notable performances for Inter, an example of which was the 2004/05 Serie A match against Sampdoria on January 9th, 2005 where he subsituted Adriano in the 32nd minute. Recoba first hit the bar, then in the 43rd minute he fed the ball to Obafemi Martins who scored to give Inter a chance to equalise; after Christian Vieri equalized the score, Recoba scored the 3-2 for Inter, the team's third goal in 5 minutes. However, he has performed badly as well, living up to the stamp put on him saying that he'd never reach his full potential.^{[citation needed]}

He was once, for a period of many years, the highest paid football player in the world, but took a voluntary paycut when Inter Milan suffered financial difficulties.^{[citation needed]}

On March 16th 2007, Recoba confirmed to Sky Italia that he will leave the team at the end of the 2006-2007 season because he is poorly used. He has been strongly linked with Inter's scudetto rivals A.S. Roma after he claimed if the opportunity arose and Inter president Massimo Moratti approved he would join the capital club immediately.^[1]

Recoba played for Uruguay at the 2002 FIFA World Cup and has earned over 50 caps for his country. His only goal at the tournament came against Senegal in Uruguay's final group game, but it wasn't enough as the match finished in a 3-3 draw and eliminated Uruguay in the first round.

In September 2005, he scored the winning goal against Argentina in a World Cup qualifier. This helped Uruguay qualify as South America's fifth best placed team in order to participate in the intercontinental playoff against Oceania champions Australia.

All seemed to be going well for Uruguay's World Cup prospects for Germany 2006 when Recoba delivered a perfect cross to supply Dario Rodriguez the header to give Uruguay a slender 1-0 advantage in Montevideo. But suddenly, in the return leg in Sydney, everything was against Uruguay, particularly also for Recoba. After managing to beat the entire Australian defence through long ball tactic, Recoba was alone one on one with the goalkeeper but amazingly shot a meter wide. This was a golden opportunity wasted, especially when Australia won the game 1-0 and won 4-2 on penalties to qualify for the World Cup. Recoba was substituted during the match, much to the dismay of Uruguayan fans.

Personal information
Álvaro Recoba
Full name	Álvaro Alexander Recoba Rivero
Date of birth	March 17, 1976 (1976-03-17) (age 31)
Place of birth	Montevideo, Uruguay
Height	1.79 m (5 ft 10 in)
Playing position	Striker, wing-forward
Club information
Current club	Internazionale
Number	20
Senior clubs¹
Years	Club	App (Gls)*
1993-95 1996-97 1997-98 1999 1999-	Danubio Nacional Internazionale Venezia Internazionale	34 (11) 33 (17) 8 (3) 19 (10) 176 (53)
National team
1995-	Uruguay	57 (11)
¹ Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only. * Appearances (Goals)

Honors

UEFA Cup winner: 1998
Coppa Italia winner: 2005, 2006
Italian Super Cup winner: 2005, 2006
Serie A champion: 2005-2006, 2006-2007.

For the full article to go: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvaro_Recoba

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