Daniel Güiza

Daniel Gonzalez Güiza is a Spanish forward who started his professional career being 18 years of age at a club named Xerez. While the player was making his first steps in football the scouts from Mallorca put an eye on the young forward. Quite soon they offered Daniel to move to the club from the Balearic Isles.

Daniel agreed to join that club even though he had to wait for his chance to star for a long time. Right after the transfer he was loaned to a club named Dos Hermanas, then came the loan spells with Recreativo and Barcelona B until he was bought by a club Ciudad de Murcia playing in the Segunda. The time there was profitable for the striker being offered a contract with a La Liga side Getafe after two seasons with 81 appearances and 38 goals. The then coach of Getafe Berndt Schuster wanted to see the talented forward in his squad and Güiza responded with 20 goals in 60 games in return for the manager’s trust.

Daniel returned to Mallorca in 2007 becoming the league’s top scorer having netted 27 times without taking a single penalty. With no doubt it was an outstanding achievement and many famous European clubs were more than willing to sign the prosperous striker.

However his career path took a rather unexpected turn as the Spaniard signed for Fenerbahçe from the Turkish league. The side paid a €14 mln fee for the striker to move to play to the Süper Lig and Güiza himself began well with two goals in the first month and another two in the UEFA Cup but then came a drought that ended only in March 22, 2009 in a lost 1-2 game against Bursaspor.

Three seasons past he managed to gain 23 goals in 62 league appearances and officially returned to Getafe on August 18, 2011 on the day of his 30th birthday. There he made 32 appearances for the season 2011/12 but didn’t manage to repeat his Mallorca success netting only three goals throughout the whole La Liga campaign. After a short spell with Malaysian club Darul Takzim Güiza signed a deal with Paraguyan outfit Cerro Porteno in the summer 2013.

Güiza was also called up to the national team of Spain starting with the year 2007 when he was capped in November. Since then he played a few more games and soon was called up for the European Championship of 2008 where Daniel was one of those to gain victory netting twice during the campaign though mainly remaining on the bench throughout the whole tournament and being allowed to play only for 169 minutes in total.