Fernando Morientes

PROFILE
Date Of Birth: April, 05, 1976

Place: Ceceres Spain

Height: 186 cm Weight: 79 Kg Zodiac: Aries Nickname: Moro Marital Status: Married with Vitoria , has two children: Fernando andLucia
Team: Real Madrid - SpainOfficial

PERSONAL'S DROPS
Singer: Queen

Movie: "The last of the Mohicans"

Car: BMW and Cherokee

Favorite Dish: pasta and traditional Spanish kitchen

Book: " El Quijote " and some police books

Playing Style

Morientes plays as a striker, and is generally considered to be a natural target man. His primary strength is his heading ability, which, combined with his height (1.86 metres) and high natural spring, make him an excellent header of the ball. Although lacking in pace, Morientes is skilled with both feet and is also a good finisher. He plays best when partnered with a quicker strike partner such as Raúl González, with whom he played for the Spanish national team and Real Madrid.

Early Career

At the age of 17, Morientes began his top-flight career at Albacete in 1993. He spent two seasons at the club, scoring 5 goals in 22 appearances. Morientes transferred to Real Zaragoza in 1995, where he spent two seasons. He scored goals regularly, and in his time at Zaragoza managed 30 goals in 66 appearances for the club.

Real Madrid

Morientes' performances for Zaragoza caught the eye of Spanish giants Real Madrid. He transferred to the club in the summer of 1997 for approximately €6.6 million. Morientes made 33 appearances for the club, scoring 12 goals. He formed a successful strike partnership with Raúl González. Real Madrid also won the Champions League in this season. In the 1998/99 season, he performed very well, scoring 19 goals in the league and 25 goals in 38 appearances overall. He continued to perform well in the 1999/00 season, scoring 19 goals and finishing as Real's top scorer in a year where he also helped Real to their second Champions League title in 3 seasons, scoring in the 3-0 win over Valencia in an all-Spanish final. In the next season, Morientes won the first of two La Liga titles with Real Madrid in an all star squad consisting of Luis Figo, Roberto Carlos, Steve McManaman, Fernando Hierro and Raul Gonzalez, scoring 10 goals overall which included 4 in 8 appearances in the Champions League as Real lost in the semifinals to eventual winners Bayern Munich. He missed the tail-end of the La Liga season due to injury.

In the 2001/02 season in La Liga, 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 6 substitute appearances. He finished second in the topscorers list for the season, tied with Patrick Kluivert and behind Diego Tristán. Real were successful in winning the Champions League after beating Bayer 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 Inter Milan. This fuelled rumours that Morientes would soon be leaving the club, with Barcelona and Tottenham Hotspur reportedly interested. Barcelona were reportedly on the verge of signing Morientes for around €22 million, but the move fell through due to Barca'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 Ronald, who was preferred to Morientes in the starting lineup along with Raul. Morientes also had a highly publicised spat with the then Real manager Vicente Del Bosque during a Champions League match against Borussia Dortmund in early 2003.

In the January transfer window, despite continuous rumours of moves to Tottenham, Real 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 La Liga medal, making a total of 15 appearances (with 3 starts) and scoring 5 goals.

On Loan to Monaco

It was now clear that Morientes was not part of the first team at Real Madrid. At the start of the 2003-04 season, after further speculation regarding his future, he was loaned to Ligue 1 side AS Monaco. Here, 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. Monaco reached the final of the competition, eventually losing in the final to FC Porto. Morientes finished as the top scorer, scoring 9 goals. Ironically, Monaco met Real Madrid in the quarter-finals. Morientes scored a vital away goal for Monaco in the first leg, which Real Madrid won 4-2. He was applauded by the Real Madrid fans after he scored. In the second leg, he scored again as Monaco won 3-1, taking the aggregate score to 5-5. Monaco went through on away goals. He also scored in their semifinal victory over Chelsea, but could not prevent Monaco from losing 0-3 in the final to Porto. Morientes' form resulted in him winning the 2004 European Striker of the Year award.

Liverpool

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. It was clear that Morientes was surplus to Real's requirements. As a result, he transferred to Liverpool in January 2005 for a fee of £6.3m, after making only 13 substitute appearances for Real in the first half of the season. He made his debut for the club against rivals Manchester United and scored his first Liverpool goal on February 1, 2005 against Charlton. He was cuptied for Liverpool's Champions League campaign and did not feature in their victory against AC 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 3 goals in the 2004-05 season. The start of the new season did not see a large improvement, although Morientes did score a few important goals and ended 2005 on a high note with a recall to the Spanish national team. However, his form did not fluctuate for the remainder of the season as he failed to replicate his Real and Monaco form. He was often played in a deep-lying striker's position instead of his favoured target man role, and failed to adapt to this new role, as well as the faster style of the Premiership At the end of the 2005-06 season, he was sold to Valencia. During his time at Liverpool, he managed only 12 goals in 61 appearances, although he was part of the squad that won the 2006 FA Cup.

Valencia

Morientes joined Valencia for a fee of £3m in May 2006 on a three-year deal after failing to impress at Anfield. He was assigned the number 9 shirt, which he previously wore at Real Madrid, and for Spain at the 2002 World Cup.
Morientes made his unofficial debut for Valencia on 29 July 2006, in a friendly against Charlton Athletic. Morientes scored Valencia's first goal in the match, which Valencia won 3-1. He made his league debut on 27 August 2006 against Real Betis, and also scored the first goal of the season for Valencia.

Morientes returned to form following his return to La Liga, forming a successful strike partnership with fellow Spaniard David Villa. Morientes finished 2006 with 6 league goals in 11 appearances.

In 19 games for Valencia in the first half of the 2006/07 season, Morientes scored 12 goals in all competitions, which is equal to the total amount of goals he scored in 61 matches during his time at Liverpool.

National Team

Morientes has been a regular for his national team since 1998, when he scored twice in the first five minutes of his debut against Sweden. As of June 22, 2006, Morientes is third on the Spanish all-time topscorer's list with 26 goals in 44 appearances, behind former Real Madrid teammates Raúl (44 goals in 102 caps) and defender Fernando Hierro (who took the majority of Spain's free kicks and penalty kicks during his international career) (29 goals in 89 caps), although his goals-to-games ratio is higher than both Raúl and Hierro.

Morientes was picked in the Spanish squad for the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, where he scored 1 and 3 goals respectively. In the 2002 World Cup, he had a goal wrongly disallowed in Spain's quarterfinal defeat to South Korea.

He was a surprise omission at Euro 2000, but played at Euro 2004 where he scored 1 of only two goals that Spain could manage.

Morientes played for the Spanish squad during the qualifiers for the 2006 World Cup. However, due to his poor form for Liverpool in 2005/06 (he scored only 5 goals), he was not chosen by Spanish national team coach Luis Aragonés in the final squad for the tournament, although he was part of a 31-man initial squad named by Aragonés.

Following his return to form after moving to Valencia, Morientes has since been recalled to the national side for friendly matches against Romania and England

Trivia

• Morientes has scored on his debut for Albacete, Real Zaragoza, Real Madrid, Valencia, Spain Under-21s and the full national side.
• 
  Morientes is married to Maria Victoria López Marín and has three children; Fernandito, Lucía and Gabriela.
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  Morientes once scored 5 goals in one league match for Real Madrid, against Las Palmas. He had the chance to score a sixth with a penalty kick, but missed.
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  Morientes' best friend is his former Real Madrid teammate Raul. Raul was often spotted at Anfield Road in the 2005/2006 English Premiership season while he was sidelined with an injury, watching Morientes play for Liverpool.