Léo_Bonatini

Léo Bonatini

Léo Bonatini

Brazilian footballer


Leonardo Bonatini Lohner Maia (born 28 March 1994) is a Brazilian professional footballer who plays as a forward for Liga MX club Atlético San Luis.

Quick Facts Personal information, Full name ...

Club career

Cruzeiro

Born in Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Bonatini joined Cruzeiro's youth setup in 2010, aged 16. In July 2012 he was loaned to Italian Serie A club Juventus for one season, with a buyout clause.[2]

Bonatini only appeared for the club's Primavera squad, and subsequently returned to Cruzeiro in the 2013 summer.[3] On 2 October 2013 he moved to Goiás, also in a temporary deal until the end of the year.[4]

Bonatini made his professional – and Série A – debut on 27 October, coming on as a second-half substitute in a 2–0 away win against Náutico.[5] He appeared in five further matches for Esmeraldino during the campaign, and had his loan contract renewed for a further year on 7 January 2014.[6]

On 5 August 2014, Bonatini's loan was cut short, due to the lack of opportunities in the main squad.[7]

Estoril

On 5 January 2015, he was loaned to Primeira Liga side Estoril Praia, until June.[8]

On 13 July 2015, Bonatini had 50% of his federative rights sold to Traffic Group, remaining at Estoril permanently. On 27 February 2016, he scored a hat-trick in a 3–0 home win against Vitória de Setúbal.[9] He finished the season with 17 goals as the Canarinhos finished 8th, with only Jonas, Islam Slimani and Kostas Mitroglou scoring more in the entire league.[10]

Al-Hilal

On 16 July 2016, Bonatini joined Saudi club Al-Hilal.[11] He won the Saudi Professional League in his only season in Riyadh, with him and compatriot Carlos Eduardo scoring 12 goals each.[12] The team also won the 2017 King Cup, and Bonatini scored twice in the 3–2 win over Al-Wehda in the last 16 at the Prince Faisal bin Fahd Stadium.[13]

Wolverhampton Wanderers

On 1 August 2017, Bonatini was sent on a season-long loan to Championship side Wolverhampton Wanderers.[14] Four days later, he made his debut, and scored his first goal, in a 1–0 win against Middlesbrough at Molineux Stadium.[15] He scored his 10th goal of the season on 3 November 2017 in a 2–0 win against Fulham, scoring in six consecutive games, becoming the first player of the 2017–18 EFL Championship season to reach double figures.[16] On 10 November 2017, after scoring 5 goals in 4 games during the October fixtures, he was awarded with the EFL Championship Player of the Month.[17] Despite scoring his last goal of the season on 4 December 2017, Bonatini finished as Wolves' second top scorer with 12 goals in 43 games as the club gained promotion to the Premier League, as well as winning the Championship league title.[18]

On 30 June 2018, he joined Wolves on a permanent deal, signing a four-year-contract for an undisclosed fee.[18] However, he took little part in their top-flight campaign, having fallen behind other strikers such as Raúl Jiménez at Nuno Espírito Santo's club.[19]

On 31 January 2019, Bonatini joined Championship side Nottingham Forest on loan until the end of the season.[20] He debuted two days later in a 2–0 loss at Birmingham City, replacing Daryl Murphy after an hour.[21] Bonatini made only four more appearances for the Reds – two starts – and did not score.[22]

Bonatini returned to Portugal's top flight on 30 August 2019, signing a season-long loan for Vitória SC.[23]

On 22 September 2020 he agreed a two-year-long loan deal at Swiss side Grasshopper,[24] playing in the Swiss Challenge League. With 11 goals shot in 31 games, the highest scorer for Grasshopper, he was instrumental in helping them achieve promotion to the Swiss Super League. In his second year at Grasshopper, he played a further 26 matches and shot seven goals (second highest in the team) and helped the team remain in the top Swiss league. After a total of 20 goals scored in 59 matches, he returned to back to Wolves at the end of May 2022.[25]

Atlético San Luis

On December 1, 2022, Wolves announced that that Bonatini had left the club by mutual consent after 4 years. On January 1 2023, he joined Atlético San Luis on a two-and-a-half year deal on a free transfer.

Career statistics

Club

As of match played on 3 December 2023[26]
More information Club, Season ...

Honours

Al Hilal

Wolverhampton Wanderers

Grasshoppers

Individual


References

  1. "2018/19 Premier League squads confirmed". Premier League. 3 September 2018. Retrieved 4 September 2018.
  2. Goiás contrata Léo Bonatini por empréstimo (Goiás signs Léo Bonatini on loan) Archived 2016-01-26 at the Wayback Machine; Goiás' official website, 2 October 2013 (in Portuguese)
  3. "Estoril vence Vit. Setúbal com "hat-trick" de Léo Bonatini" [Estoril defeat Vit. Setúbal with a "hat-trick" from Léo Bonatini]. Diário de Notícias (in Portuguese). 27 February 2016. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  4. Judah, Nathan (1 August 2017). "Wolves' new Brazilian striker: Who is Leo Bonatini?". Shropshire Star. Retrieved 24 January 2019.
  5. "Al-Hilal anuncia Bonatini (Al-Hilal announces Bonatini)". A Bola (in Portuguese). Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 16 July 2016.
  6. "Léo Bonatini e Carlos Eduardo são campeões da Arábia Saudita" [Léo Bonatini and Carlos Eduardo are champions of Saudi Arabia] (in Portuguese). TVI 24. 20 April 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  7. "Complacent Al Hilal edge past Al Wahda in Saudi King's Cup". Sporting News. 25 January 2017. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  8. "Bonatini checks in!". Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. 1 August 2017.
  9. "Wolverhampton Wanderers 2–0 Fulham". BBC Sport. 3 November 2017.
  10. "Wolves Sign Bonatini And Vinagre". Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. 30 June 2018.
  11. Husband, Ben (29 January 2019). "'A Poundland Jimenez' - it's time for this Wolves transfer to happen". Birmingham Mail. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  12. "Leo arrives on loan". Nottingham Forest F.C. 31 January 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  13. "Birmingham City 20 Nottingham Forest". BBC Sport. 2 February 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  14. Clapson, Sarah (10 June 2019). "Nottingham Forest loan flop Leo Bonatini recommended as 'good investment' for Fenerbahce". Nottingham Post. Retrieved 2 July 2019.
  15. "Léo Bonatini quer "regressar aos golos", agora no Vitória de Guimarães" [Léo Bonatini wants to "return to goals", now at Vitória de Guimarães]. Observador (in Portuguese). 30 August 2019. Retrieved 3 October 2019.
  16. "Bonatini makes loan switch away". Wolverhampton Wanderers F.C. 22 September 2020.
  17. "END OF SEASON SQUAD UPDATE". gcz.ch. 2022-05-23. Retrieved 2022-05-25.
  18. Léo Bonatini at Soccerbase
  19. "Games played by Léo Bonatini in 2017/2018". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Retrieved 25 November 2017.
  20. "Games played by Léo Bonatini in 2018/2019". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Retrieved 17 September 2018.
  21. "Games played by Léo Bonatini in 2018/2019". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  22. "Games played by Léo Bonatini in 2019/2020". Soccerbase. Centurycomm. Retrieved 6 September 2020.
  23. Anderson, John, ed. (2018). Football Yearbook 2018–2019. London: Headline Publishing Group. pp. 386–387. ISBN 978-1-4722-6106-9.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Léo_Bonatini, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.