Sebastián Gastón Merlo (born 26 January 1985), also referred to as Đỗ Merlo, is an Argentine 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 lea ...

who played as a striker.

Career

Merlo was one of the best goalscorers in the

V.League 1 The V.League 1 (), also called LPBank V.League 1 for sponsorship reasons, is the top professional football league in Vietnam, controlled by the Vietnam Professional Football Joint Stock Company (VPF). It is contested by 14 clubs who play each ...

, the top tier of Vietnamese football. During his first passage with SHB Đà Nẵng, he won the league's top scorer award three times in a row from 2009 to 2011. He also won the league's best foreign player award in

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

and

2011 The year marked the start of a Arab Spring, series of protests and revolutions throughout the Arab world advocating for democracy, reform, and economic recovery, later leading to the depositions of world leaders in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen ...

. After taking a year to recover from a leg injury in his native Argentina, Merlo rejoined SHB Đà Nẵng in February 2016 and won the

top scorer award for the fourth time in his career. In June 2017, he was granted Vietnamese citizenship and got a new name, Đỗ Merlo. In 2023, Merlo returned to his birth country and signed for CA Costa Brava and later announced his retirement. However, in May 2024, he resumed his playing career, signing for LPBank Ho Chi Minh City in the

Vietnamese Second Division The Vietnamese Football League Second Division () is the third tier professional association football league in Vietnam controlled by the Vietnam Football Federation. History A national third tier of Vietnamese association football was first es ...

Career statistics

Honours

SHB Đà Nẵng *

2012 2012 was designated as: *International Year of Cooperatives *International Year of Sustainable Energy for All Events January *January 4 – The Cicada 3301 internet hunt begins. * January 12 – Peaceful protests begin in the R ...

; runner-up:

2013 2013 was the first year since 1987 to contain four unique digits (a span of 26 years). 2013 was designated as: *International Year of Water Cooperation *International Year of Quinoa Events January * January 5 – 2013 Craig, Alask ...

Vietnamese Super Cup Vietnamese National Football Super Cup (), also called the Thaco National Football Super Cup due to sponsorship reasons, is Vietnamese football's annual match contested between the champions of the previous V.League 1 season and the holders of th ...

: 2013 *

Vietnamese National Cup Vietnamese National Football Cup (), commonly recognized and branded as the National Cup (), is a Vietnamese Association football, football competition. It is one of the most important club competitions in Vietnam. The Vietnamese Cup was first he ...

: 2009 Individual *

Top scorer:

2010 The year saw a multitude of natural and environmental disasters such as the 2010 Haiti earthquake, the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and the 2010 Chile earthquake. The 2009 swine flu pandemic, swine flu pandemic which began the previous year ...

2016 2016 was designated as: * International Year of Pulses by the sixty-eighth session of the United Nations General Assembly. * International Year of Global Understanding (IYGU) by the International Council for Science (ICSU), the Internationa ...

References

External links

Gastón Merlo Interview
(archived 12 July 2020) {{DEFAULTSORT:Merlo, Gaston 1985 births Living people Argentine men's footballers Footballers from Buenos Aires Men's association football forwards Primera Nacional players V.League 1 players SHB Da Nang FC players Saigon FC players Nam Định F.C. players Ferro Carril Oeste footballers Argentine expatriate men's footballers Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Vietnam Expatriate men's footballers in Vietnam Naturalized citizens of Vietnam 21st-century Argentine sportsmen