Agustín Julio Castro (born 25 October 1974) is a Colombian

Association football Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

former player, who played as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

International career

Julio used to be the number one choice goalkeeper for the

Colombia national football team The Colombia national football team ( es, Selección de fútbol de Colombia) represents Colombia in men's international football and is managed by the Colombian Football Federation, the governing body for football in Colombia. They are a member ...

. He had won his position after the previous first-choice keeper

Miguel Calero Miguel Ángel Calero Rodríguez (14 April 1971 – 4 December 2012) was a Colombian professional association football, footballer who played as a goalkeeper (association football), goalkeeper. He played 50 times for the Colombia national footba ...

allowed nine goals in two games. In his stint as keeper, he saved Colombia many times during the first two games of qualifiers against

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

and

Bolivia , image_flag = Bandera de Bolivia (Estado).svg , flag_alt = Horizontal tricolor (red, yellow, and green from top to bottom) with the coat of arms of Bolivia in the center , flag_alt2 = 7 × 7 square p ...

, and was referred to as ''San Agustín''. Julio was captain of Colombia for nine out of the first 11 qualifying games of the

2010 FIFA World Cup qualification Qualifying for the 2010 FIFA World Cup was a series of tournaments organised by the six FIFA confederations. Each confederation — the AFC (Asia), CAF (Africa), CONCACAF (North, Central America and Caribbean), CONMEBOL (South America), OFC (O ...

. He had a successful start to his captaincy reign with a huge win over

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

. However questions were raised about Julio's captaincy after a 4–0 defeat to

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the east a ...

. The captaincy and Julio's place in the team were soon lost after this defeat. However, in a shocking turnaround Agustín Julio managed to regain his place in the Colombian side in the match against

Ecuador Ecuador ( ; ; Quechua: ''Ikwayur''; Shuar: ''Ecuador'' or ''Ekuatur''), officially the Republic of Ecuador ( es, República del Ecuador, which literally translates as "Republic of the Equator"; Quechua: ''Ikwadur Ripuwlika''; Shuar: ''Eku ...

. Julio's Colombian side won the match 2–0 which took the side back into the playoff positions. Julio made a critical save in the 72nd minute of the match when Colombia when the score was still 0–0, and he managed to save a low-shot with his feet from point-blank range. Agustin Julio remained a popular figurehead in Colombia, with fans petitioning on internet sites to re-instate Julio back in the team, and after a great performance during the first four games of qualifiers he was rated the 15th best keeper in the

world In its most general sense, the term "world" refers to the totality of entities, to the whole of reality or to everything that is. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the worl ...

br>

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Julio, Agustin 1974 births Living people Association football goalkeepers Colombian footballers Colombia international footballers 1999 Copa América players Categoría Primera A players Independiente Santa Fe footballers Atlético Junior footballers Once Caldas footballers Independiente Medellín footballers Unión Magdalena footballers Deportes Tolima footballers Sportspeople from Cartagena, Colombia