Juan Roman Riquelme

About Juan Roman Riquelme

Juan Román Riquelme played football at walking pace and still controlled everything around him. In an era that was becoming faster and more physical every year, he was a classic enganche, the Argentine term for the playmaker who links midfield and attack, and he refused to change. That stubbornness is part of why his career looks the way it does: glorious at Boca Juniors, complicated at Barcelona, revitalised at Villarreal, and then back to Buenos Aires for good.

Born in June 1978 and raised in the suburbs north of Buenos Aires, he developed as a youngster at Argentinos Juniors before joining Boca Juniors, where his professional career begins in 1996. His first spell at La Bombonera, until 2002, was the most decisive period in the club's modern history. Boca won the Copa Libertadores in 2000 and 2001 and beat Real Madrid in the 2000 Intercontinental Cup in Tokyo, and Riquelme was the brain of that side: shielding the ball with his body, slowing a match down when it suited Boca and then releasing the pass nobody else saw.

Barcelona signed him in 2002, but the single season in Catalonia, 2002 to 2003, never clicked. He was not a natural fit for the coach's plans and was often left on the margins. Rather than return home, he moved on loan and then permanently to Villarreal, where between 2003 and 2007 he found the perfect stage. The small club from the Valencian region built its play around him, reached the semi-finals of the Champions League in 2006 and became one of the most attractive teams in Spain. The missed penalty against Arsenal in that semi-final is part of his story too, a reminder of how close Villarreal came.

In 2007 he returned to Boca, first on loan, and immediately helped the club win another Copa Libertadores that same year. That second spell lasted until 2014 and cemented his status as an idol, perhaps the most beloved figure of his generation among Boca supporters, even through several public disagreements with coaches and directors.

His final season, in 2014, brought him back to Argentinos Juniors, the club where he had first learned the game as a boy. Then he retired, closing a circle that is unusually neat: the club of his childhood at the start and the end, Boca on either side of a Spanish chapter.

His numbers show a strong balance between goals and assists, with assists ahead, which is exactly what you would expect. Riquelme was never primarily a finisher; he was the man who made the decisive pass, often from a standing start, after holding the ball long enough to drag defenders out of position. Years later he went on to lead Boca from the boardroom, but supporters will always picture him in the blue and gold number ten shirt, his foot on the ball, looking up.