Gonzalo Higuaín

Gonzalo Higuaín was born in 1987 in Brest, France. Currently, he is a Napoli and the Argentina national team forward as he has Argentine roots.

Gonzalo was born in the family of a professional footballer from Argentina who had a contract with a local French club. Gonzalo’s parents came back to their homeland in Argentina when he still was not a year old, which is why he has a French passport, although he cannot speak French. In 2006, after a successful display on the club level Gonzalo got two simultaneous invitations to play for national teams. At that moment France and Argentina national teams fought for the player. But then Higuaín refused to play for any of the national teams having taken a pause to reflect.

Later, the player chose to play for the Argentina national team and began his club career at Club Atlético River Plate together with his brother who is also a professional player. Successful displays in River Plate in the seasons of 2004-2006 helped the player draw the attention from the Madrid club. In 2007, Gonzalo Higuaín officially became its player and got in the team’s main squad at once as Real Madrid had serious problems with forwards and only Raúl could successfully attack but already was not young and not in his best shape. Over six seasons with Los Blancos Higuaín scored more than 100 goals in 190 matches. However, he did not have a solid place in the starting line-up and in the summer 2013 completed a move to Italian outfit Napoli in a deal worth £34.5m.

At the FIFA World Cup in RSA Higuaín became one of the main forwards of the Argentina national team and managed to meet high expectations. He scored the tournament’s first hat-trick in Argentina’s first match. However, Gonzalo’s successful display did not help his team win medals of the championship as in the quarterfinal they were slammed 4-0 by the Germany national team.