Young player profile: Rodrigo Palacio

Secawan Bola is proud to bring you a new series entitled Young player profile. Whenever we do one of these, we profile a young player from a league from somewhere, usually a player who is gaining interest and could soon become hot property, but is essentially someone the international media hasn't actively picked up on. We'll tell you what you'll need to know about him so you can take his little profile away and name drop him among your football peers. When his name becomes household, should it ever, and you look like the paragon of cool for getting to him before Jorge Valdano did, all we ask of you is to drop by and leave a comment telling us what a nice bunch of blokes we've been. ;) And so, with that, we begin.


Name: Rodrigo Palacio
Age: 24
Position: Striker
Club: Boca Juniors
Country: Argentina

This is Rodrigo Palacio. Boca Juniors signed him last year after he turned up 36 times for Banfield and scored 9 goals. While that's not exactly a phenomenal goal return, his first season under the tutelage of Alfio Basile earned him rave reviews in Argentina, which culminated in his selection in Jose Pekerman's world cup squad. You may not remember it, but Palacio was a second-half substitute in Argentina's opening game against Ivory Coast.

The flamboyant Ricardo La Volpe has taken over the reins at Boca Juniors this season, and Palacio has netted three times in Boca's opening six games. His strike partnership with Boca legend Martin Palermo has been hugely fruitful, with Palermo finding a rich vein of form alongside young Palacio.

At 24, Palacio already has a fair few titles under his belt: the 2005 Apertura and Clausura championships, the 2005 Copa Sudamericana (something like South America's UEFA Cup) and the 2005 Recopa (South America's Super Cup). It seems like his move to Boca has, if nothing else, has won him some silverware and a day in shop window for European clubs.

All this, along with the promotion of former mentor Alfio Basile into the Argentina manager position, can only be good news for Palacio as far as his international career is concerned. Palacio has turned up three times for the Albiceleste. Having said that, his competition at international level is extremely stiff, and he must fend off higher profile youngsters like Teves, Saviola and Messi if he is to earn his... stripes, blue and white. He missed out on the recent friendly loss to Brazil, though that might actually have been a good thing. There's definitely promise for Boca's number 14, and we'll track him along with Boca this season, and see if his promise ever comes good.


Next up: Elano. Who's that Brazillian who put two past Argentina? We'll profile el classico's latest hero.

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