Daniel Ruiz-Bazán Justa (born 28 June 1951), commonly known as Dani, is a Spanish former

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 le ...

who played as a

striker Striker or The Strikers may refer to: People *A participant in a strike action *A participant in a hunger strike *Blacksmith's striker, a type of blacksmith's assistant *Striker's Independent Society, the oldest mystic krewe in America People wi ...

. During his career he played almost exclusively for

Athletic Bilbao Athletic Club ( eu, Bilboko Athletic Kluba; es, Athletic Club de Bilbao), commonly known as Athletic Bilbao or just Athletic, is a professional Association football, football club based in the city of Bilbao in the Basque Country (autonomous com ...

, scoring nearly 200 competitive goals (exactly 199) in more than one decade with the first team. He was a penalty kick specialist.

Club career

Born in Sopuerta, Biscay, Dani played his youth football in various clubs in the

Basque Country Basque Country may refer to: * Basque Country (autonomous community), as used in Spain ( es, País Vasco, link=no), also called , an Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Spain (shown in pink on the map) * French Basque Country o ...

. He signed with

in 1971 at the age of 20, spending one full season with the reserve side in the Tercera División. After two years loaned at neighbouring Barakaldo CF of the

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...

, Dani returned to his ''alma mater'', scoring in double digits for nine of the following ten years. His first La Liga match occurred on 29 September 1974 in a 3–0 away loss against Valencia CF and, in the 1976–77 season, as the ''Lions''

reached ''Reached'' is a 2012 young adult dystopian novel by Allyson Braithwaite Condie and is the final novel in the ''Matched Trilogy,'' preceded by '' Matched'' and '' Crossed''. The novel was published on November 13, 2012, by Dutton Juvenile and wa ...

the final of the UEFA Cup and the Copa del Rey, also finishing third in the league, he netted a total of 29 goals in 46 official games. In the latter competition, during his 12-year stint with the club, he reached the 20-goal mark twice. Dani helped Athletic to back-to-back league titles in his later years (1983–84), although he was only a fringe player in the latter campaign – ten matches, three goals – due to the emergence of another youth product of the club,

Manuel Sarabia Manuel 'Manu' Sarabia López (born 9 January 1957) is a Spanish retired professional footballer who played as a striker. He amassed La Liga totals of 363 games and 101 goals over the course of 14 seasons, mainly with Athletic Bilbao but also ...

. He would be further pushed down the pecking order after the first-team promotion of

Julio Salinas Julio Salinas Fernández (; born 11 September 1962) is a Spanish former footballer who played during the 1980s and 1990s. A tall, lanky centre forward with skills, he was best remembered for his spell at Barcelona – having started his career ...

, and eventually retired in June 1986 at the age of 35, having scored 147 league goals in 302 appearances. Dani's total of 11 goals in European competition stood as a club record for 25 years, until passed by Fernando Llorente in 2012.

International career

Dani played 25 matches and scored ten goals for Spain, during four years and two days. His debut came on 21 September 1977, in a 2–1

friendly Friendly may refer to: Places * Friendly, West Yorkshire, a settlement in Calderdale, West Yorkshire, England * Friendly, Maryland, an unincorporated community in the United States * Friendly, Eugene, Oregon, a neighborhood in the United States * ...

win in

Switzerland ). Swiss law does not designate a ''capital'' as such, but the federal parliament and government are installed in Bern, while other federal institutions, such as the federal courts, are in other cities (Bellinzona, Lausanne, Luzern, Neuchâtel ...

. Dani represented his country in both the

1978 FIFA World Cup The 1978 FIFA World Cup was the 11th edition of the FIFA World Cup, a quadrennial international football world championship tournament among the men's senior national teams. It was held in Argentina between 1 and 25 June. The Cup was won by t ...

and UEFA Euro 1980, respectively scoring against Austria and England (1–2 defeats and group stage exit in both cases).

International goals

:''Scores and results list Spain's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Dani goal.''

Honours

Athletic Bilbao * La Liga: 1982–83, 1983–84 * Copa del Rey: 1983–84 *

Supercopa de España The Supercopa de España or the ''Spanish Super Cup'' is a super cup tournament in Spanish football. Founded in 1982 as a two-team competition, the current version has been contested since 2019–20 by four teams: the winners and runners-up of ...

: 1984 * UEFA Cup runner-up: 1976–77

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Dani 1951 births Living people People from Enkarterri Spanish footballers Footballers from the Basque Country (autonomous community) Association football forwards La Liga players Segunda División players CD Getxo players CD Laudio players Bilbao Athletic footballers Athletic Bilbao footballers Barakaldo CF footballers Spain under-21 international footballers Spain amateur international footballers Spain B international footballers Spain international footballers 1978 FIFA World Cup players UEFA Euro 1980 players Basque Country international footballers Sportspeople from Biscay