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Cuauhtémoc Blanco

Cuauhtémoc Blanco Bravo (born January 17, 1973 in Mexico, D.F.), also known as Cuau or Temo, is a Mexican international football midfielder, who currently plays for Chicago Fire in the United States' Major League Soccer division.

Blanco is the only Mexican football player with an award in an international FIFA competition, as he won the Silver Ball and the Golden Shoe awards in the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup. He has been awarded the MVP of the Mexican First League Division five times. Although Blanco plays mostly as an attacking midfielder; he is tied with Brazilian football player Ronaldinho as the leading Confederations Cup goalscorer. Blanco is also Mexico's second top scorer in both the FIFA World Cup and the Copa Libertadores tournaments; and the fourth top scorer of the Mexican national football team of all time, one goal behind Carlos Hermosillo and Luis Hernández. He is also the second top scorer of the Mexican team, Club América.

He is also known for his theatrical goal celebrations and unique football technique known as the "Blanco Bounce", which is the official name given by FIFA administrators. In Mexico it is known as the "Cuauhtemiña". He is considered by FIFA and the FMF as one of the best Mexican soccer players in the history of the sport.

Biography

Primera División

Blanco was born and raised in the infamous Mexico City neighbourhood of Tepito where he learned to love and play the game of football. Growing up in a rough environment, as Tepito is an area with a high crime rate, Blanco developed a style of play based on creativity and aggressiveness leading him to sometimes lose his temper. Blanco made his debut in the Primera División (Mexican First Division) in 1992 at the age of 19 with América. In 1997, Blanco was loaned out to play with Necaxa, in 1998 he was awarded the MVP, and returned two years later to play for Club América. In 2000, Blanco was loaned to Real Valladolid in Spain where he played for two years in the La Liga (The Spanish League) where he scored one of his most famous goals in the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium against Real Madrid. Blanco returned to Club América in 2002, winning the MVP award.

In May 2005, Blanco won his first club championship as a player, leading Club América to its tenth league title, when Club América defeated U.A.G. by an aggregate score of 7-4 (1-1, 6-3). In the next three consecutve years between 2005 to 2007, he was awarded the MVP.

Blanco is regarded as one of Mexico's best football attacking midfielders and one of the league's most prolific scorers still in activity, with 151 goals. He has amassed 100 caps and scored 34 goals for his country.

International career

Blanco has played for the Mexican national football team in two World Cups including France '98 and Korea-Japan 2002, scoring in each one of them. He was a member of the Mexican national team that won the Confederations Cup in 1999 where he was the tournament's leading scorer with 6 goals. He was awarded the "Golden Boot" and "Silver Ball" for outstanding player of the tournament. Blanco holds the record along with Ronaldinho as the highest scoring players in the Confederations Cup with 9 goals, three in 1997 and 6 in 1999. He is also one of the top scorers of the Mexican national football team; nine goals behind the top scorer Jared Borgetti.

Blanco was responsible for introducing a unique football technique known popularly in Mexico as the "Cuautemiña" (also known as the "Blanco Bounce" or "Bunny Hop"), whereupon Blanco would deviously secure the ball lodged between both feet to avoid tackling players, with the ball hidden away from the defenders. This skill was introduced in the 1998 World Cup in France, against South Korea. In the selection for the final 23 man squad for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, former Mexican national team coach Ricardo Lavolpe left Blanco out of the team. While the ostensible reason is that Blanco was frequently injured and not in good form; some people considered this to be a consequence of the previous year's constant bickering, due to on-going personal problems between coach and player. Following the exclusion of Blanco on the national team, a large group of fans organized a 15-kilometer protest march.

Blanco became part of the squad that played the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup, scoring one penalty goal, and the 2007 Copa America, where he scored 2 goals also in penalty kicks.

After Sven-Göran Eriksson was signed to be the Mexico national coach, he observed Blanco in an MLS match. Eriksson was very impressed and plans on building his team around Blanco when he starts coaching Mexico in August for the WC qualifiers.

Blanco was part of the squad that played the first World Cup 2010 qualifying game against Honduras in Sven-Göran Eriksson's first game as coach of the National team. Having gone 1-0 down, the Mexican crowd voiced their wish to see Blanco on the field. Eriksson resisted, but eventually introduced Blanco in the 70th minute to a standing ovation. Blanco's presence shook Honduras, together with his trickery and cheekiness, Blanco started the run of play that ended in Pavel Pardo's 30 yard pile-driver into the top corner and 3 minutes later won the free-kick which Pardo again took, and scored from.

He has since been praised for his influential performance and is now tipped to be a certain starter for the majority of Mexico's qualifying games, mostly down to his experience and current form with Chicago Fire in the MLS. Blanco officially announced his retirement from the Mexican National team on September 10, 2008, before a World Cup Qualifier against Canada.

United States, Major League Soccer

On April 2, 2007, Blanco ventured on to Major League Soccer in the United States and signed with Chicago Fire. He was welcomed by 5,000 fans at Toyota Park as he conducted interviews with the media, signed autographs and greeted with fans. He told fans, "I am coming to Chicago", "I am very happy and will give 100 percent for Chicago to be in the final. I look forward to working with this group of players to bring a championship title to Chicago, a community that has always supported me, in good times and in bad times. I hope to bring great satisfaction to all of you."

Blanco played his first match against Scottish club Celtic FC. He scored the first goal of the game in a drawn match. Blanco's first season with Chicago achieved him success, as he scored 4 goals and had 7 assists in 14 regular season games as he helped the club reach the MLS Eastern Conference Final. He was later voted as a finalist for both the M.V.P. and Newcomer of the Year awards in 2007. As of the 2008 season, Blanco is the second-highest paid player in Major League Soccer, after Los Angeles Galaxy midfielder David Beckham, earning $2.7 million a year.

Blanco was the 2007 Sierra Mist Goal of the Year Winner which was his first season, goal came in week 20 against RSL.

On July 24, 2008 during the MLS All-Stars vs West Ham United, Blanco won the MVP of the game with one assist and one goal, a game in which he only played 46 Minutes the MLS All-stars won 3–2.

Celebration

From early on in his career, Blanco celebrates scoring a goal by acting like the Prehispanic Tlatoani Aztec emperor Cuauhtémoc, in order to show respect for the Mexican people, and their indigenous Amerindian heritage.

The feud between Blanco and former Mexican national team coach Ricardo Lavolpe has lasted for more than 10 years; since when inappropriate words were said before a match between Club América and CF Atlas, where Lavolpe was coach. Blanco scored a goal in that match and celebrated by intimidating and lying on the field just several meters in front of Lavolpe.

Open Cup Ban

Blanco has been suspended from U.S. Open Cup play for a minimum of two years for his conduct during a quarterfinal game against D.C. United on July 8th. At age 35, it is unlikely Blanco will ever play in the Open Cup again. Blanco was sent off in extra time for his involvement in a scuffle with United player Clyde Simms where he punched him in the stomach and poked him in the eye. After declining to leave the field in a timely manner, Blanco allegedly headbutted a United operations official.

Career statistics

|- |1992-93||rowspan="5"|América||||12||0|||||||||||||||| |- |1993-94||||4||0|||||||||||||||| |- |1994-95||||33||6|||||||||||||||| |- |1995-96||||32||0|||||||||||||||| |- |1996-97||||27||9|||||||||||||||| |- |1997-98||Necaxa||||28||13|||||||||||||||| |- |1998-99||rowspan="2"|América||||31||31|||||||||||||||| |- |1999-00||||36||20|||||||||||||||| |- |2000-01||rowspan="2"|Real Valladolid||rowspan="2"|La Liga||3||0|||||||||||||||| |- |2001-02||20||3|||||||||||||||| |- |2002-03||rowspan="5"|América||rowspan="5"|Primera División||36||11|||||||||||||||| |- |2003-04||38||20|||||||||||||||| |- |2004-05||35||13|||||||||||||||| |- |2005-06||28||7|||||||||||||||| |- |2006-07||36||13|||||||||||||||| |- |2007||rowspan="2"|Chicago Fire||rowspan="2"|Major League Soccer||14||4|||||||||||||||| |- |2008||17||4||||||||||||||||376||143||||||||||||||||23||3||||||||||||||||30||8||||||||||||||||416||150|||||||||||||||| |}