Gastón Nicolás Fernández (born 12 October 1983) is an Argentine 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 ...

who played as a forward. He spent most of his senior club career in Argentine Primera División side Estudiantes.

Club career

Nicknamed ''La Gata'' (''The Cat''), Fernández began his professional career with River Plate. After a stint with

Racing In sport, racing is a competition of speed, in which competitors try to complete a given task in the shortest amount of time. Typically this involves traversing some distance, but it can be any other task involving speed to reach a specific go ...

and another season back with River, in 2006 he was loaned to Monterrey. When the contract was finished, Monterrey declined to pay the nearly two million dollars to permanently buy Gastón, thus prompting him to return to River Plate in December 2006. However,

Daniel Passarella Daniel is a masculine given name and a surname of Hebrew origin. It means "God is my judge"Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 68. (cf. Gabriel—"God is my strength"), ...

, then River's head coach, believed the team had enough strikers. Fernández was therefore sold to

San Lorenzo de Almagro Club Atlético San Lorenzo de Almagro, commonly known as San Lorenzo de Almagro or simply San Lorenzo (in English: ''Saint Lawrence''), is a sports club of Argentina in the Boedo district of Buenos Aires. It is best known for its football team ...

. In San Lorenzo ''La Gata'' revindictated his career. He was the leading scorer of the team that won the 2007 Clausura championship. He then spent one year in Mexico with

Tigres de la UANL Club de Fútbol Tigres de la Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, simply known as Tigres UANL or Tigres, is a Mexican professional football club based in San Nicolás de los Garza, a city in the Monterrey metropolitan area, Nuevo León. Foun ...

. In 2008, Fernández returned to Argentina to play for Estudiantes de La Plata, where he finished as runner up with the team in the

2008 Copa Sudamericana The 2008 Copa Sudamericana de Clubes was the seventh edition of the Copa Sudamericana football tournament. The draw for the tournament took place on June 10, 2008 in Buenos Aires and the competition was played between July 30 and December 3. Arsen ...

. He was then a first team regular in the team that won the

2009 Copa Libertadores The 2009 Copa Libertadores de América (officially the 2009 Copa Santander Libertadores de América for sponsorship reasons) was the 50th edition of the Copa Libertadores de América, CONMEBOL's premier annual international club tournament. The ...

, where he scored the equalising goal in the second leg of the final against Cruzeiro. Subsequently, he went back to Tigres, where he helped win the 2009 SuperLiga title against Chicago Fire. In January 2010, Tigres released the Argentine winger upon his request, and Fernández returned to Estudiantes. Upon his return, Fernández helped lead Estudiantes to the 2010 Apertura tournament title. On January 15, 2014, Fernández signed with Major League Soccer club Portland Timbers. On March 8, 2014, ''La Gata'' scored an equalizer goal in the 93' of his MLS debut to extend the Timbers' home unbeaten streak to sixteen. He added a second goal the following game on March 16, 2014 against the Chicago Fire to force another draw. On August 3, 2015 MLS announced that Fernández and the Timbers had mutually agreed to part ways.Portland Timbers and attacker Gaston Fernandez mutually agree to part ways
/ref>

International career

Gastón Fernández has played for several of

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 ...

's youth teams.

Honours

;River Plate * Argentine Primera División: 2003 Clausura ;San Lorenzo * Argentine Primera División: 2007 Clausura ;Tigres *

North American SuperLiga The SuperLiga was an official North American association football competition between teams from the Liga MX of Mexico and Major League Soccer of the United States and Canada, the top divisions in each country. The competition was sanctioned by C ...

: 2009 ;Estudiantes * Copa Libertadores: 2009 * Argentine Primera División: 2010 Apertura ; Grêmio * Copa Libertadores:

2017 File:2017 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The War Against ISIS at the Battle of Mosul (2016-2017); aftermath of the Manchester Arena bombing; The Solar eclipse of August 21, 2017 ("Great American Eclipse"); North Korea tests a s ...

References

External links

Statistics
at Guardian Stats Centre
Argentine Primera statistics
at Fútbol XXI * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez, Gaston 1983 births Living people Sportspeople from Lanús Argentine footballers Argentine expatriate footballers Argentine sportspeople of Spanish descent Association football midfielders Club Atlético River Plate footballers Racing Club de Avellaneda footballers San Lorenzo de Almagro footballers Estudiantes de La Plata footballers Universidad de Chile footballers C.F. Monterrey players Tigres UANL footballers Portland Timbers players Portland Timbers 2 players Grêmio Foot-Ball Porto Alegrense players Liga MX players Chilean Primera División players Argentine Primera División players Major League Soccer players USL Championship players Expatriate footballers in Chile Expatriate footballers in Mexico Expatriate soccer players in the United States Expatriate footballers in Brazil Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Chile Argentine expatriate sportspeople in the United States Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Mexico Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Brazil