Jairo Fernando "El Tigre" (The Tiger) Castillo Cortés (born 17 November 1977) is a retired

Colombia Colombia (, ; ), officially the Republic of Colombia, is a country in South America with insular regions in North America—near Nicaragua's Caribbean coast—as well as in the Pacific Ocean. The Colombian mainland is bordered by the Car ...

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

player. He has played for a number of clubs in Colombia,

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 ...

, Spain,

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...

Club career

Castillo started his playing career in 1994 at

América de Cali América de Cali S. A., best known as América de Cali or América, is a Colombian professional football club based in Cali. It competes in the Categoría Primera A, the top-flight league of Colombian football. The team plays its home games at ...

, where he won the league title in 1997. In 2000, he joined Vélez Sársfield of

but returned to América de Cali after only one season where he won in 2002, another Colombian league title. In 2003, he went back to Argentina to play for

Club Atlético Independiente Club Atlético Independiente () is an Argentina, Argentine professional sports club, which has its headquarters and stadium in the city of Avellaneda in Greater Buenos Aires. The club is best known for its Association football, football team, wh ...

. He then had spells in Europe with

Real Valladolid Real Valladolid Club de Fútbol, S.A.D., or simply Real Valladolid () or Valladolid, is a professional football club based in Valladolid, Castile and León, Spain that competes in La Liga, the top tier of the Spanish league system. The club colo ...

of Spain and

AEL Limassol Athlitiki Enosi Lemesou ( el, Αθλητική Ένωση Λεμεσού, translation=Athletic Union of Limassol) commonly known as AEL, is a Cypriot sports club based in the city of Limassol, most famous for its football team. AEL also maintain ...

, In 2008, he joined

Defensor Sporting Defensor Sporting Club is a sports club based in Montevideo, Uruguay. Founded in 1913, Defensor has several sports sections, with football and basketball being the most important and the ones in which the club has achieved significant achievemen ...

. Castillo returned to Argentina in 2008 to play for newly promoted Godoy Cruz, he scored twice on his league debut against Banfield and then on 28 September 2008 he scored a

hat-trick A hat-trick or hat trick is the achievement of a generally positive feat three times in a match, or another achievement based on the number three. Origin The term first appeared in 1858 in cricket, to describe H. H. Stephenson taking three wic ...

helping Godoy Cruz to beat

Boca Juniors Club Atlético Boca Juniors () is an Argentine sports club headquartered in La Boca, a neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. The club is mostly known for its professional football team which, since its promotion in 1913, has always played in the A ...

4–1. Ironically, his improved form would only cause more heartbreak; being Godoy Cruz best player, he would yet again have an injury putting a major dent into his career. The next game, on 5 October 2008, away to Gimnasia, Jairo suffered a season-ending torn ACL after a hard tackle. Godoy Cruz subsequently lost their next 3 games. In September 2009, after 11 months without playtime, Jairo Castillo left Godoy Cruz after his contract with the club from Mendoza expired, and joined the ranks of Millonarios, in Bogotá, Colombia. In December 2009 the 32-year-old forward Jairo Fernando Castillo Cortés moved back to Godoy Cruz after six months in Colombia.

International career

Castillo played 23 times for the Colombia national team between 1999 and 2005,Colombia record international footballers
at

rsssf The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (RSSSF) is an international organization dedicated to collecting statistics about association football. The foundation aims to build an exhaustive archive of football-related information from around the ...

he was part of the squad that won their first and only

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 ...

title in

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which Casualties of the September 11 attacks, killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a Participants in ...

References

External links

Argentine Primera statistics
at Fútbol XXI

Spanish Segunda statistics
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Castillo, Jairo 1977 births Living people Association football forwards Colombian footballers Colombian expatriate footballers Colombia international footballers América de Cali footballers Atlético Bucaramanga footballers Club Atlético Vélez Sarsfield footballers Club Atlético Independiente footballers Real Valladolid players Millonarios F.C. players AEL Limassol players Defensor Sporting players Godoy Cruz Antonio Tomba footballers Querétaro F.C. footballers Atlético Tucumán footballers Boyacá Chicó F.C. footballers Expatriate footballers in Argentina Expatriate footballers in Uruguay Expatriate footballers in Mexico Expatriate footballers in Cyprus Expatriate footballers in Spain Categoría Primera A players Categoría Primera B players Argentine Primera División players La Liga players Cypriot First Division players Uruguayan Primera División players 2000 CONCACAF Gold Cup players 2001 Copa América players Copa América-winning players People from Tumaco Sportspeople from Nariño Department