Leonel Bucca (born 20 March 1999) 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 le ...

who plays as a

midfielder A midfielder is an outfield position in association football. Midfielders may play an exclusively defensive role, breaking up attacks, and are in that case known as defensive midfielders. As central midfielders often go across boundarie ...

for

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal, ...

club

Estrela da Amadora Club Football Estrela da Amadora (), sometimes just Estrela, is a Portuguese sports club (predominantly football) based in Amadora, northwest of Lisbon. It's the successor of Clube de Futebol Estrela da Amadora, founded in 1932 and extinct in ...

Career

Bucca initially came through the ranks at the local side San Lorenzo Esperanza, before moving into the Unión Santa Fe youth system in 2016. In January 2020, Bucca was linked with a move to the United States with second tier team

Loudoun United Loudoun United FC is an American professional soccer team based in Leesburg, Virginia. The team was founded in 2018 as the reserve team of D.C. United and made its debut in the USL Championship in 2019. History On July 18, 2018, the team was offi ...

. The move never materialised, with the midfielder later describing it as "nothing concrete". He signed his first professional contract on 28 October 2020, which was followed by his senior debut in a draw at home to

Arsenal de Sarandí An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

on 1 November; he featured for seventy-five minutes. He was sent off in his second appearance on 20 November against the same opponents. After five total matches for Unión, Bucca was loaned to Primera Nacional with

Deportivo Riestra Deportivo Riestra Asociación de Fomento Barrio Colón, also known as Deportivo Riestra, is an Argentine sports club from Buenos Aires. The club is mainly focused on football, with the senior squad currently playing in Primera B Nacional, the seco ...

on 10 February 2021. On December 2022, after his contract with Unión Santa Fe expired, Bucca dropped down to the Primera Nacional, joining San Martín de Tucumán. At the end of the

2023 season 3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societie ...

, his contract expired and he left the club. On 9 January 2024, Bucca moved to Portugal, signing a two-and-a-half-year contract with

club

Personal life

On 22 November 2020, it was confirmed that Bucca had tested positive for

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

amid the

pandemic A pandemic () is an epidemic of an infectious disease that has spread across a large region, for instance multiple continents or worldwide, affecting a substantial number of individuals. A widespread endemic (epidemiology), endemic disease wi ...

Career statistics

Notes

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Bucca, Leonel 1999 births Living people People from Esperanza, Santa Fe Footballers from Santa Fe Province Argentine men's footballers Men's association football midfielders Argentine Primera División players Primera Nacional players Primeira Liga players Unión de Santa Fe footballers Deportivo Riestra players San Martín de Tucumán footballers C.F. Estrela da Amadora players Argentine expatriate men's footballers Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal