Arturo Alvarez

Arturo Alvarez (born June 28, 1985 in Houston, Texas) is an American soccer player of Salvadoran descent, who currently plays for the San Jose Earthquakes of Major League Soccer.

Arturo joined the league in 2003, signing a Project-40 contract, and was selected 13th overall in the 2003 MLS SuperDraft by the San Jose Earthquakes. In his first year, Arturo saw limited playing time, only registering 655 minutes and has also had difficulty earning playing time in 2004. However, the Quakes traded him to Dallas before the 2005 season, in a large deal that included Richard Mulrooney and Brad Davis.

During the 2007 MLS Cup Playoffs, in the second leg of FC Dallas' Conference semifinal match with the Houston Dynamo, Alvarez was sent off for "violent conduct" after he kneed Brad Davis in the groin while out of bounds in the 47th minute. FC Dallas went on to lose the game, 4-1, and the match 4-2 on aggregate.

In November, 2007 Alvarez had a one week trial with French club FC Girondins de Bordeaux.

Alvarez was traded to the San Jose Earthquakes in July, 2008 for allocation money and their 1st round draft pick in the 2009 MLS SuperDraft. In his debut, he scored the first goal of the match against the LA Galaxy in a match that ended 3-2.

Career statistics

|- |2003||rowspan="2"|San Jose Earthquakes||rowspan="2"|Major League Soccer||15||1|||||||||||||||| |- |2004||11||1|||||||||||||||| |- |2005||rowspan="4"|Dallas||rowspan="4"|Major League Soccer||24||2|||||||||||||||| |- |2006||19||3|||||||||||||||| |- |2007||27||3|||||||||||||||| |- |2008||||||||||||||||||||96||10||||||||||||||||96||10|||||||||||||||| |}

International career

Alvarez was recently invited to the Men's Under-23 training camp by US Assistant Coach Peter Nowak. He has the opportunity to represent the US at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.

See also

• List of current MLS players