Diego Forlan chose football to help pay for his injured sister's care
As a boy in Montevideo, Diego Forlan was as serious about tennis as football. Then in 1991 a car crash left his sister Alejandra disabled, and medical bills pushed the family into crisis. Hoping to help cover her treatment, he committed to football, and grew into the best player of the 2010 World Cup.
Football was already the family trade. His father Pablo played for Uruguay at the 1966 and 1974 World Cups, and his maternal grandfather Juan Carlos Corazzo was linked with Argentina's Independiente. Diego Maradona's fundraising eventually helped rescue the family finances after the accident. At 16 Forlan spent four months on trial at Nancy in France without earning a contract, then signed with Independiente, rejecting Boca Juniors, and scored 37 goals in 80 league games.
In January 2002 Middlesbrough agreed to pay 6.9 million pounds for him in 18 instalments, but Manchester United swooped at the last minute with the same fee in one payment and a bigger salary. His candid explanation to reporters was that United offered more money. Goals were scarce at first, and against Southampton he celebrated a winner by ripping off his shirt, then had to make a tackle bare-chested because he could not get it back on in time. Two goals at Anfield earned him a long-lived fan chant about making Liverpool supporters cry.
Spain suited him better. In his first season at Villarreal he scored 25 league goals, winning the Pichichi Trophy and sharing Europe's Golden Shoe with Thierry Henry, and the club reached the Champions League for the first time and then its semi-finals. At Atletico Madrid he won both prizes again in 2009 with 32 goals and scored the winner in the 2010 Europa League final.
At that summer's World Cup he scored five times as Uruguay reached the semi-finals, winning the Golden Ball. A year later he struck twice in the Copa America final as Uruguay took their first title since 1995, and in 2013 he became the first Uruguayan to reach 100 caps. After retiring in 2019 he took up competitive tennis on the veterans' circuit, and in 2026 he was named coach of the national team.
Source: Diego Forlán
