Eduard 'Edu' Albácar Gallego (born 16 November 1979) is a Spanish former 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 le ...

who played as a

left back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

Club career

Born in Tortosa,

Tarragona Tarragona (, ; Phoenician: ''Tarqon''; la, Tarraco) is a port city located in northeast Spain on the Costa Daurada by the Mediterranean Sea. Founded before the fifth century BC, it is the capital of the Province of Tarragona, and part of Tar ...

Catalonia Catalonia (; ca, Catalunya ; Aranese Occitan: ''Catalonha'' ; es, Cataluña ) is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy. Most of the territory (except the Val d'Aran) lies on the north ...

, Albácar only played for

Segunda División B Segunda División B ( en, Second Division B) was the third tier of the Spanish football league system containing 102 teams divided into five groups, until it was replaced by the new structure in 2021. It was administered by the Royal Spanish Foot ...

and

Tercera División Tercera División ( en, Third Division) was the fourth tier of the Spanish football league system. Founded in 1929, it was below the ''Primera División'' (also known as La Liga), the ''Segunda División'', and the semi-professional ''Segunda Di ...

teams until well into his 20s. In July 2006 he signed with

Hércules CF Hércules de Alicante Club de Fútbol, S.A.D. () is a Spanish football team in Alicante, in the autonomous community of Valencian Community. Founded on 25 October 1922, it currently plays in Segunda División RFEF – Group 3 and plays its hom ...

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 ...

, and appeared in his first game as a professional on 27 August when he started in a 0–1 home loss against

Málaga CF Málaga Club de Fútbol (, ''Málaga Football Club''), or simply Málaga, is a association football, football club based in Málaga, Andalusia, Spain, that competes in the Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish football league system, ...

. In June 2008, Albácar moved to

Deportivo Alavés Deportivo Alavés, S.A.D. (; ''Sporting Alavés''), usually abbreviated to Alavés, is a List of football clubs in Spain, Spanish football club based in Vitoria-Gasteiz, Álava, in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of the ...

also in the second tier. One year later, he signed with fellow league club Rayo Vallecano. On 22 July 2010, Albácar joined Elche CF. In his third year, he scored a career-best eight goals – mainly through free kicks and

penalties Penalty or The Penalty may refer to: Sports * Penalty (golf) * Penalty (gridiron football) * Penalty (ice hockey) * Penalty (rugby) * Penalty (rugby union) * Penalty kick (association football) * Penalty shoot-out (association football) * Penalty ...

– and also helped the Valencian side return to

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men's ...

after 24 years of absence.El Elche vuelve a la elite 25 años después (Elche return to the elite 25 years later)
Mundo Deportivo, 11 August 2013 (in Spanish) On 24 August 2013, aged almost 34, Albácar made his debut in the top flight, starting in a 1–1 home draw against

Real Sociedad Real Sociedad de Fútbol, S.A.D., more commonly referred to as Real Sociedad (; ''Royal Society''), La Real in Spanish, Erreala in Basque, is a Spanish professional sports club in the city of San Sebastián, Basque Country, founded on 7 Septem ...

. He scored his first goal in the competition six days later, in a 2–2 draw at UD Almería. Albácar announced his retirement on 13 August 2015, being immediately included in

Rubén Baraja Rubén Baraja Vegas (; born 11 July 1975) is a Spanish retired footballer, currently manager of Valencia. A complete central midfielder with good tackling, technique, and offensive qualities, together with accurate passing and goalscoring abili ...

's staff. Roughly a year later he stepped down from retirement, returning to his last club Elche at the age of 36. On 2 May 2018, Albácar announced that he would retire at the end of the season, which ended in promotion to the second division.El Elche anuncia el despido de Edu Albacar como secretario técnico (Elche announce dismissal of Edu Albacar as technical secretary)
Marca, 14 September 2018 (in Spanish)

Honours

Elche *

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. I ...

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Albacar, Edu 1979 births Living people People from Tortosa Sportspeople from the Province of Tarragona Spanish footballers Footballers from Catalonia Association football defenders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players Tercera División players RCD Espanyol B footballers Novelda CF players Alicante CF footballers Hércules CF players Deportivo Alavés players Rayo Vallecano players Elche CF players