Fat Footballers: Fabricio Fontanini

Picture: www.elsigloweb.com

Today in your favourite column we write about Fabricio Fontanini, an Argentinian defender of Italian descent, who was born in 1990 and plays for Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro.
Probably this player isn’t a true “Fat Footballer”, because in sevaral pictures and videos it’s unclear whether he’s fat or very muscular, almost a bodybuilder: anyway his weight is 84 kgs and he’s 181-cm-tall, so, big or fat, he looks quite stocky, so finally we decided to introduce him to you, also because in the next days he’ll play the Final of Copa Libertadores !

Fabricio Bautista Fontanini was born 24 years ago in Rafaela, a city in the Province of Santa Fé, situated in the Centre-North of Argentina: he is a quite technical right-footed central back, physically very strong, but not too slow, who can score few goals. He’s also nicknamed “Cacho” and “Puyol”, because he’s very similar to former FC Barcelona’s Captain Carles Puyol, who has just retired and was used to play in the same position.

Fontanini while is promoting mattresses, you can notice how much he looks like Carles Puyol – Pictures: www.taringa.net

The Argentinian defender was formed in the youth sector of Atlético de Rafaela, the main Club of his city, and collected the first apperance for the First Team when he was almost 18, when 2007/08 Nacional B, Argentinian second tier, was almost over. In the following two seasons he played twice the Play-off against a Primera Divisiòn team in order to gain the promotion to the first tier, and both times Atletico Rafaela faced Gimnasia y Esgrima de La Plata, but both times failed to reach the highest division.
After spending three seasons at Atlético de Rafaela, playing 69 matches and scoring 3 goals, Fabricio was loaned to Quilmes, a Primera Division team, with whom he was a regular starter, appearing in 35 of 38 matchdays: after this positive year, the loan expired and Atlético Rafaela, who meanwhile has just been promoted to the first tier, kept him, so he was a regular starter in the following two Primera Divisiòn seasons, in which he scored 6 goals in 67 matches.
His continuous performances attracted the interest of one of the biggest Argentinian Clubs, San Lorenzo, that bought him for 5 millions Pesos, and made him sign a 3-year-contract.
2013/14 Season, the first one with the “Ciclòn”, didn’t start well, because during preseason he had suffered an injured that had ruled him out for three months, so he played his first official game on 14th matchday, against Boca Juniors, anyway that was in time enough to help San Lorenzo to clinch the 2013/14 Apertura Title, while in the following Clausura Championship Fontanini played 12 games on 19 matchdays, and also appeared 3 times in Copa Libertadores, that San Lorenzo could win if they beated Club Nacional from Paraguay in the Final !