Football Player's Biography 7: Fernando Morientes

Full name	Fernando Morientes Sánchez
Date of birth	5 April 1976 (1976-04-05) (age 35)
Place of birth	Cáceres, Spain
Height	1.86 m (6 ft 1 in)
Playing position	Striker

Fernando Morientes Sánchez (born 5 April 1976) is a retired Spanish footballer who played as a striker.
His main asset was his aerial and strong goalscoring abilities. He played for a number of clubs throughout his career, including Real Madrid, AS Monaco, Liverpool, and Valencia CF. In La Liga, he scored 124 goals in 337 games, over the course of 15 seasons.
Morientes scored nearly 30 goals in nearly 50 appearances for the Spanish national team, representing the country in two FIFA World Cups (totalling five goals) and one UEFA European Football Championship.

Club career

Early career

Born in Cáceres, Extremadura, Morientes moved to Sonseca, Province of Toledo at the age of four. He began his professional career at Albacete Balompié, making his La Liga debut in 1993–94, spending two seasons at the club and scoring five goals in 22 matches (nine starts and 13 substitute appearances). Morientes transferred to Real Zaragoza in 1995, where he spent another two seasons, often being partnered up front by Dani, a Real Madrid youth graduate.

Real Madrid

Morientes' performances for Zaragoza caught the eye of Spanish giants Real Madrid, which bought the player in the summer of 1997 for approximately €6.6 million. Initially backing up established Predrag Mijatović and Davor Šuker, he finished as starter, and managed 12 goals in his debut season in 33 matches, squad-best (with the two players who fought with him for a starting berth netting 10 apiece, as youth system prodigy Raúl). Real finished fourth in the league, but won the season's UEFA Champions League.
In the 1998–99 season, Morientes performed very well, scoring 19 goals in the league and 25 in 38 appearances overall. He continued to display top football in 1999–2000, scoring 19 goals and finishing as Real's top scorer in a year where he also helped to the capital side's second Champions League title in three seasons, scoring in the 3–0 win over Valencia CF in an all-Spanish final. In the next season, Morientes won the first of two league titles with Real Madrid, scoring 10 goals overall which included four in eight appearances in the Champions League as Real lost in the semifinals to eventual winners FC Bayern Munich. He missed the tail-end of the domestic season due to injury.
In 2001–02, Real failed to win the league, losing out to Valencia. However, Morientes continued his scoring form, scoring 18 league goals in only 25 starts, with six substitute appearances. He also scored five goals in Real's 7–0 demolition of UD Las Palmas, missing out on a double hat-trick after missing from the penalty spot late in the match. He finished second in the top scorers list for the season, tied with Patrick Kluivert and behind Deportivo de La Coruña's Diego Tristán. Real were successful in winning the Champions League after beating Bayer 04 Leverkusen; Morientes played in the final and received a third Champions League winners medal.
In the summer of 2002, Real Madrid signed Brazilian superstar Ronaldo from F.C. Internazionale Milano. This fueled rumours that Morientes would soon be leaving the club, with FC Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur reportedly interested. The former were reportedly on the verge of signing Morientes for around €22 million, but the move fell through due to Barça's reluctance to match Morientes' wage demands. Eventually, Morientes decided to stay at Madrid, but as predicted he did not feature as much in the side after the arrival of Ronaldo, who was preferred to Morientes in the starting lineup along with Raúl. Morientes eventually fell down the pecking order of strikers to Guti and Javier Portillo and, during a February 2003 home win against Borussia Dortmund – 2–1 in the Champions League second group stage – was involved in a highly publicised spat with club manager Vicente del Bosque, with the player allegedly insulting the coach after being called to enter the pitch as a third replacement in the dying minutes.^[1]^[2] In the winter transfer window, despite continuous rumours of moves to Tottenham, Zaragoza, A.S. Roma, and A.C. Milan, Morientes remained at the club for the remainder of the season. Real would go on to win the league and Morientes earned his second league medal, making a total of 15 appearances (with three starts) and scoring five goals.
At the start of 2003–04, it was evident Morientes was not part of Madrid's plans; after extensive but ultimately unsuccessful negotiations regarding a loan deal with Germany's FC Schalke 04, he was loaned to French league side AS Monaco,^[3] where he performed very well, scoring 10 goals in 28 appearances in the league. However, it was in the Champions League that he really made an impact, finishing as the top scorer, at nine goals. Monaco met Real Madrid in the quarter-finals,^[4] where he scored a vital away goal in the first leg, which Real Madrid won 4–2. In the second leg, Morientes scored again as Monaco won 3–1, taking the aggregate score to 5–5 (away goals rule triumph). He also scored in their semifinal victory over Chelsea, but could not prevent Monaco from losing 3–0 in the final to F.C. Porto, played at the Arena AufSchalke in Gelsenkirchen, Germany.
After returning to Real Madrid at the start of the 2004–05 season, Morientes' hopes of forcing his way into the Real squad were further dampened with the arrival of Michael Owen from Liverpool. He featured in 13 scoreless league matches (all as a substitute), and was transferred to Liverpool in January 2005 for a fee of €9.3 million.^[5] During his time at Real, Morientes made a total of 182 league appearances, with 112 starts and 70 games as a substitute, and scored 82 league goals.

Liverpool

Morientes made his debut for the club against rivals Manchester United and scored his first Liverpool goal on 1 February 2005 against Charlton Athletic. He was cup-tied for Liverpool's Champions League campaign and did not feature in their victory against Milan in the final of the competition.
Although Morientes came to Liverpool with a very good reputation, his transfer to Merseyside was followed by a large dip in form. He scored only three goals in 2004–05 and did not fare much better in the following season; although he showed glimpses of quality including a well-taken opening goal against Aston Villa and a brace in a 2–0 win against Middlesbrough, he could only find the net five times in 28 outings in the league,
At the end of the 2005–06 season, Morientes was sold to Valencia. During his time at Liverpool, he managed only 12 goals in 61 appearances, although he was part of the squads that won the 2005 UEFA Super Cup and the 2006 FA Cup.

Valencia

After a difficult season and a half at Liverpool, Morientes transferred to Valencia in late May 2006 for a fee reported to be around £3 million.^[6] Here, he started to regain his form, scoring on his league debut, a 2–1 home win against Real Betis, and also netting a hat-trick in his first Champions League game against Olympiacos FC.^[7] He linked up well with David Villa and scored 12 league goals in 24 games, and was also Valencia's top scorer in the Champions League with seven. His good form throughout 2006–07 also earned him a recall to the national side.
In the 2007–08 season, Morientes and Villa were joined in the strike force by Nikola Žigić and Javier Arizmendi. The campaign, however, was disappointing, as the "Che" were knocked out of the Champions League after finishing fourth in the group, and manager Quique Sánchez Flores was sacked following a poor run of form. Morientes picked up an injury in December 2007 that ruled him out for almost three months. He made his return to the team against Sevilla FC on 15 March 2008 and came off the bench to score the third and final goal in Valencia's 3–1 win over Getafe CF in the season's domestic cup final, the following month.^[8]
Morientes missed out on another few league games after he was hospitalised in April with abdominal pains and fever. He was released from hospital in time for the final two league games of the season, but played no part in either. In his first two seasons at Valencia, Morientes has scored 18 goals in 48 league matches, adding eight in 18 European competition contests, while also missing a number of matches through a number of injuries.
Having begun the following campaign as an unused substitute in Valencia's first league game, and only coming on as a substitute in the second, Morientes was handed his first start in a UEFA Cup match against C.S. Marítimo. He scored the only goal of the game, a solo effort at the 12-minute mark. However, his increasing age and the form of Villa and Juan Mata led to only a handful of appearances in the league. As Valencia were ousted in the round of 32, Morientes finished as the club's top scorer in the European competition, at three goals in seven matches.

Marseille

On 27 July 2009, Morientes agreed a deal to join France's Olympique de Marseille on a free transfer, for one season, reuniting with former Monaco boss Didier Deschamps.^[9] During his first year, he was only the fourth of fifth striker in the squad, and was released on 1 July 2010, by mutual consent.^[10] On August 31, the 34-year old announced his retirement from football.^[11]

International career

Morientes was a reliable performer for his national team since 1998; he scored a brace in the first five minutes of his debut against Sweden on 25 March, adding a further two in each of his next two games, against Northern Ireland and Bulgaria respectively. Morientes ranks fourth on the Spanish all-time topscorer's list with 27 goals in 47 appearances, behind former Real Madrid teammate Raúl, former Valencia teammate Villa and former Madrid captain Fernando Hierro (who took the majority of Spain's free kicks and penalties), although his goals-to-games ratio is higher than Raúl and Hierro.
Morientes scored five goals in the two FIFA World Cups he featured in, with two goals in 1998 and three in 2002. In the latter edition, Morientes and Raúl played together up front, and both showed impressive form in the tournament. During the knock-out round match against South Korea, Morientes scored a goal in extra-time that was disallowed, although replays suggested the goal was legitimate; Spain eventually lost the match on penalties.
He was a surprise omission at UEFA Euro 2000, but played at Euro 2004 in Portugal, where he scored one of only two goals that Spain could manage, in a subsequent group stage exit. Morientes also played for the nation during the 2006 World Cup qualifiers; however, due to his poor form for Liverpool in 2005-06, he was not chosen by national team coach Luis Aragonés in the final squad for the tournament, although he was part of a 31-man initial squad.
Following his return to form after moving to Valencia, Morientes was recalled to the national side. He scored his 27th goal for Spain in a Euro 2008 qualifier against Denmark on 24 March 2007. Injured four days later against Iceland, in another qualifying contest, he was not recalled again.