Roberto Júnior "Gatito" Fernández Torres (born 29 March 1988) is a Paraguayan

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 plays as a

goalkeeper In many team sports which involve scoring goals, the goalkeeper (sometimes termed goaltender, netminder, GK, goalie or keeper) is a designated player charged with directly preventing the opposing team from scoring by blocking or intercepting o ...

for

Campeonato Brasileiro Série A The Campeonato Brasileiro Série A (; English: "Brazilian Championship A Series"), commonly referred to as the Brasileirão (; English: "Big Brazilian"), and also known as Brasileirão Assaí due to sponsorship with Assaí Atacadista, is a Br ...

club

Botafogo Botafogo (local/standard alternative Brazilian Portuguese pronunciation: ) is a beachfront neighborhood (''bairro'') in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It is a mostly upper middle class and small commerce community, and is located between the hills of M ...

. He is known as ''Gatito'' ( en, little cat) for being the son of former Paraguayan 1986 World Cup goalkeeper Roberto Fernández, nicknamed ''Gato'' ( en, cat). Because of his father, who was a goalkeeper at Brazilian clubs, such as

Internacional Sport Club Internacional (), commonly known as Internacional or simply Inter, is a Brazilian professional football club based in Porto Alegre. They play in the Série A, the first division of the Brazilian league, as well as in Campeonat ...

and

Palmeiras Sociedade Esportiva Palmeiras (), commonly known as Palmeiras, is a Brazilian professional football club based in the city of São Paulo, in the district of Perdizes. Palmeiras is one of the most popular clubs in South America, with around ...

, Gatito had lived in Brazil before his professional days.

Career

Club career

Fernández started his professional career with

Paraguayan Primera División The División Profesional de la Asociación Paraguaya de Fútbol (; "Professional Division of the Paraguayan Football Association"), also known as the Primera División (; "first division"), or due to sponsorship reasons Copa de Primera TIGO-Vis ...

club

Cerro Porteño Club Cerro Porteño is a professional Paraguayan football club, based in the neighbourhood of Obrero in Asunción. Founded in 1912, Cerro has won 34 Primera División titles and is one of the most popular football clubs in Paraguay. Its presi ...

in 2007. He became Paraguayan champion with the club in the 2009 Apertura. Following the achievement, he joined

Argentine Primera División The Primera División (; en, "First Division"), known officialy as Liga Profesional de Fútbol, or Torneo Binance for sponsorship reasons, is a professional football league in Argentina, organised by the Argentine Football Association (AFA). Th ...

side

Estudiantes de La Plata Club Estudiantes de La Plata ( lit. "Students from La Plata"), simply referred to as Estudiantes de La Plata , is an Argentine professional sports club based in La Plata. The club's football team currently competes in the Primera División, wh ...

. After a season in the club without any first team appearance, he joined

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 goa ...

Utrecht (loan)

In August 2011, Utrecht announced to have signed Fernández on loan for one year to cover a possible departure of

Michel Vorm Michel Armand Vorm (born 20 October 1983) is a Dutch former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper and was a goalkeeping coach at Tottenham Hotspur. Vorm began his professional career at FC Utrecht in 2005, spending his first season ...

Botafogo

On 26 November 2016 Fernandéz signed with

, on a free transfer, a two-year contract until December 2018. On 9 April 2018, after good performances in the

2017 Copa Libertadores The 2017 Copa CONMEBOL Libertadores (officially the Copa CONMEBOL Libertadores Bridgestone 2017 for sponsorship reasons) was the 58th edition of the CONMEBOL Libertadores (also referred to as the ''Copa Libertadores''), South America's premier cl ...

and

2018 Campeonato Carioca The 2018 Campeonato Carioca de Futebol was the 115th edition of the top tier of football of FFERJ (Federação de Futebol do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, or Rio de Janeiro State Football Federation). The top four teams in the final standings of th ...

, Botafogo extended contract with Fernandéz until December 2021. On 6 October 2022, he became the foreign player with the most appearances for

, surpassing his teammate Joel Carli with 188 games.

International career

He debuted with the Paraguayan U20 national team in the

2007 South American Youth Championship The 2007 South American Youth Championship (Sudamericano Sub-20) was the 23rd edition of the competition. It was played in Paraguay between 7 and 28 January 2007, and was contested by all ten U-20 national football teams of CONMEBOL. This was the ...

replacing injured Blas Hermosilla. He was selected for Paraguay senior squad for the

2011 Copa América The 2011 Campeonato Sudamericano Copa América, better known as the 2011 Copa América or the Copa América 2011 Argentina, was the 43rd edition of the Copa América, the main international football tournament for national teams in South Americ ...

. He was an un-used substitute for the squad as they finished the tournament as the runner-up.

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Club

Cerro Porteño * Primera División:

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; 2009 Iran ...

Estudiantes de la Plata *

FIFA Club World Cup The FIFA Club World Cup is an international men's association football competition organised by the ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The competition was first contested in 200 ...

Runner-up:

Botafogo *

Campeonato Carioca The Campeonato Carioca (Carioca Championship), officially known as Campeonato Estadual do Rio de Janeiro (Port., Rio de Janeiro State Championship), was started in 1906 and is the annual football championship in the state of Rio de Janeiro, B ...

2018 File:2018 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony in PyeongChang, South Korea; Protests erupt following the Assassination of Jamal Khashoggi; March for Our Lives protests take place across the United ...

Campeonato Brasileiro Série B The Campeonato Brasileiro Série B is commonly referred to as the Brasileirão Série B (Série B), and until 2022 was officially called Brasileirão Sportingbet by sponsorship reasons. It is the second tier of the Brazilian football league system ...

2021 File:2021 collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: the James Webb Space Telescope was launched in 2021; Protesters in Yangon, Myanmar following the 2021 Myanmar coup d'état, coup d'état; A civil demonstration against the October–November 2021 ...

International

Paraguay *

Copa América The Copa América ( en, America Cup) or CONMEBOL Copa América, known until 1975 as the South American Football Championship (''Campeonato Sudamericano de Fútbol'' in Spanish and ''Campeonato Sul-Americano de Futebol'' in Portuguese), is the t ...

Runner-up:

2011 File:2011 Events Collage.png, From top left, clockwise: a protester partaking in Occupy Wall Street heralds the beginning of the Occupy movement; protests against Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, who was killed that October; a young man celebrate ...

Individual

Copa do Brasil The Copa do Brasil ( en, Brazil Cup) is a knockout football competition played by 92 teams, representing all 26 Brazilian states plus the Federal District. It is the Brazilian domestic cup and the Brazilian equivalent of the FA Cup, Taça de ...

Best Goalkeeper:

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 ser ...

*Troféu EFE Brasil: 2017
- UOL

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Fernandez, Gatito 1988 births Living people Footballers from Asunción Paraguayan men's footballers Men's association football goalkeepers Paraguayan expatriate men's footballers Paraguayan Primera División players Argentine Primera División players Eredivisie players Campeonato Brasileiro Série A players Campeonato Brasileiro Série B players Cerro Porteño players Estudiantes de La Plata footballers Racing Club de Avellaneda footballers FC Utrecht players Esporte Clube Vitória players Figueirense FC players Botafogo de Futebol e Regatas players 2011 Copa América players 2019 Copa América players Paraguay men's under-20 international footballers Paraguay men's international footballers Paraguayan expatriate sportspeople in Argentina Paraguayan expatriate sportspeople in Brazil Expatriate men's footballers in Argentina Expatriate men's footballers in the Netherlands Expatriate men's footballers in Brazil Paraguayan people of Italian descent Paraguayan people of Spanish descent