Wilmer_Velásquez

Wilmer Velásquez

Wilmer Velásquez

Honduran footballer (born 1972)

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Neal and the second or maternal family name is Velásquez.

Wilmer Raynel Neal Velásquez (born April 28, 1972) is a retired Honduran footballer who played as a forward. He was regarded as one of the greatest footballers in Honduran soccer for Olimpia, and by foremost as the nation's greatest striker ever alongside Carlos Pavón.

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He is currently the all-time top goalscorer in the Honduran National Football League with 196 goals, and was the second player to reach 150 goals after Denilson Costa.

Club career

Nicknamed El Matador, Velásquez started his professional career with Olimpia and he would not play for any other Honduran team during his career. He made his debut on 1 November 1990 against Platense and scored his first goal on 23 January 1992 against city rivals Motagua.[1] He did play for other teams though, with Concepción in Chile, Sport-Recife in Brazil and Atlas in Mexico but was not very successful with all of them.

In 2005, Velásquez was crowned one of the Top Goalscorers in the World by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics. He made 15 goals with both the Honduras national football team and his club, Olimpia, finishing second only behind Brazilian player Adriano Leite Ribeiro, who scored 18 goals.[2]

He has won 12 titles of the Honduran League, all of them with Olimpia. In December 2008 he announced he would retire after the 2009 Clausura.[3] He has scored 318 goals in competitive games, 258 of them for Olimpia.[4]

International career

Velásquez made his debut for Honduras in an April 1997 UNCAF Nations Cup match against Panama in which he famously scored four goals. He has earned a total of 47 caps, scoring 35 goals.[5] He has represented his country in only 2 FIFA World Cup qualification matches[6] and played at the 1997,[7] 2005[8] and 2007 UNCAF Nations Cups[9] as well as at the 1998,[10] 2003[11] and 2005 CONCACAF Gold Cups.[12] In 2009, he quualified with Honduras to the 2010 fifa world cup (an achievement not done by the Honduran Football team since 1982) scoring the tie-break goal against El Salvador that qualified his team to the world cup.

His final international was a june-july FIFA World cup 2010 match against Switzerland national football team.

Career statistics

Club

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International goals

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Honours and awards

Club

CD Olimpia

Individual

Notes

  1. [N 1]
    Includes other competitive competitions, including the FA Community Shield, UEFA Super Cup, Intercontinental Cup, FIFA Club World Cup

References

  1. [1]
    El primer y último grito de Wilmer Velásquez - El Heraldo (in Spanish)
  2. [2]
    "The World's Top Goal Scorer (2005)". IFFHS. 2005.
  3. [3]
    Wilmer Velásquez anuncia retiro - Diez (in Spanish)
  4. [4]
    Desafíe a Ismael - La Prensa (in Spanish)
  5. [5]
    Luis Fernando Passo Alpuin. "Wilmer Raynel Neal Velasquez - Goals in International Matches". RSSSF. Retrieved 2013-09-30.
  6. [6]
    Wilmer Velásquez – FIFA competition record (archived)
  7. [7]
    UNCAF Tournament 1997 - RSSSF
  8. [8]
    Qualifying Tournament for Gold Cup 2005 - Details - RSSSF
  9. [9]
    UNCAF (Qualifying Tournament for Gold Cup) 2007 - Details - RSSSF
  10. [10]
    CONCACAF Championship, Gold Cup 1998 - Full Details - RSSSF
  11. [11]
    CONCACAF Championship, Gold Cup 2003 - Full Details - RSSSF
  12. [12]
    CONCACAF Championship, Gold Cup 2005 - Full Details - RSSSF
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