Alberto Martín Acosta Martínez (born 23 January 1977), more commonly known as Beto Acosta or simply Acosta, is a Uruguayan professional
footballer
A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...
who plays as a
striker for
Penarol.
Acosta has amassed nearly 500 career league appearances and more than 150 (league) goals from the positions of
striker,
attacking midfielder
A midfielder is an outfield position in association football.
Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...
and
wingback for a variety of different clubs throughout
South America
South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere at the northern tip of the continent. It can also be described as the sout ...
.
Career
Beto started his career at
Defensor Sporting
Defensor Sporting Club is a sports club based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Founded in 1913, Defensor has several sports sections, with football and basketball being the most important and the ones in which the club has achieved significant achievem ...
as a promising youth player, being fast-tracked into the first team and making his senior début for the club at the age of just 17. In two seasons, he scored 18 times in 30 league matches for Defensor.
He transferred to
Platense Wanderers in 1997, making just 5 appearances in the domestic league, scoring twice, before joining Club Sportivo Cerrito the following year for 17,000
UYU.
He is perhaps best remembered for his time at
Club Sportivo Cerrito
Club Sportivo Cerrito, usually known simply as Cerrito, is a Uruguayan football club based in Cerrito de la Victoria, Montevideo. They currently play in the Uruguayan Segunda División.
Titles
*Uruguayan Segunda División
Segunda División ...
, where he became a
cult hero
In modern English, ''cult'' is usually a pejorative term for a social group that is defined by its unusual religious, spiritual, or philosophical beliefs and rituals, or its common interest in a particular personality, object, or goal. This ...
, scoring 96 goals in 294 league games (137 in 346 in all competitions), and captaining the club on more than 60 occasions.
After leaving Cerrito, Beto suffered a dip in form which saw him be frozen out of the Uruguay national team for the first time in his career, a factor that would eventually lead him to retire from the international scene.
Beto's exploits in Brazil saw him play most notably for
Clube Náutico Capibaribe, where he was reasonably successful. Beto continued to ply his trade in Brazil.
Honours
Individual
*
Campeonato Brasileiro Série A Team of the Year:
2007
References
External links
*
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Acosta, Beto
1977 births
Living people
Footballers from Montevideo
Association football forwards
Uruguayan footballers
Defensor Sporting players
Sportivo Cerrito players
Peñarol players
Clube Náutico Capibaribe players
Sport Club Corinthians Paulista players
Brasiliense Futebol Clube players
Central Sport Club players
Resende Futebol Clube players
CE Operário Várzea-Grandense players
Uruguayan expatriate footballers
Expatriate footballers in Brazil
Uruguayan Primera División players
Campeonato Brasileiro Série A players