Luis Eduardo Quintero Hernández (born 12 October 2004) is a 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
right winger
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 Spanish side
Deportivo de La Coruña
Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña (), commonly known as Deportivo La Coruña (), Deportivo or simply Dépor, is a professional association football, football club based in the city of A Coruña, Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. They currently p ...
, on loan from
Villarreal
Villarreal ( ca-valencia , Vila-real) is a city and municipality in the province of Castellón which is part of the Valencian Community in the east of Spain.
The town is located at 42 m above sea level, 7 km to the south of the province's ...
. Born in Spain, he is a youth international for Colombia.
Early life
Quintero was born in
Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...
,
Valencian Community
The Valencian Community ( ca-valencia, Comunitat Valenciana, es, Comunidad Valenciana) is an autonomous community of Spain. It is the fourth most populous Spanish autonomous community after Andalusia, Catalonia and the Community of Madrid with ...
Elche
Elche ( ca-valencia, Elx) is a city and municipality of Spain, belonging to the province of Alicante, in the Valencian Community. According to 2014 data, Elche has a population of 228,647 inhabitants,Kelme, before joining the academy of
Villarreal
Villarreal ( ca-valencia , Vila-real) is a city and municipality in the province of Castellón which is part of the Valencian Community in the east of Spain.
The town is located at 42 m above sea level, 7 km to the south of the province's ...
in 2017. He spent the 2020–21 and 2021–22 seasons with Villarreal subsidiary
Roda
Roda may refer to:
Places
*Stadtroda (called Roda until 1925), a town in Thuringia, Germany
*Roda, Greece, a village in Corfu, Greece
* Roda, Punjab, a town and Union Council of Punjab, Pakistan
*Roda, Portugal, a village in Viseu district, Portu ...
. Returning to Villarreal for the 2022–23 season, he made his debut for the club's C-team in the
Tercera Federación
Tercera Federación, previously known as Tercera División RFEF, is the fifth tier of the Spanish football league system. It is below the ''Primera División'' (also known as La Liga), the '' Segunda División'', and the semi-professional division ...
on 25 September 2022, coming on as a second-half substitute for Sergio Hinojosa against Rayo Ibense and providing the assist for Villarreal's second goal in an eventual 2–1 win.
On 6 July 2023, Quintero was loaned to
Segunda División
The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commercially known as LaLiga SmartBank for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spanish football league system. Administrated by the Lig ...
side
Amorebieta
Amorebieta-Etxano, also known as Zornotza (Spanish, ''Amorebieta-Echano''), is a town and municipality located in Biscay in the Basque Country, an Autonomous Community in northern Spain.
At the time of the 2019 census, the population of the muni ...
for the season. He made his professional debut on 11 August, starting in a 1–1 home draw against Levante.
On 31 January 2024, Quintero joined
Deportivo de La Coruña
Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña (), commonly known as Deportivo La Coruña (), Deportivo or simply Dépor, is a professional association football, football club based in the city of A Coruña, Galicia (Spain), Galicia, Spain. They currently p ...
on loan for the remainder of the season with the option to buy.
International career
Quintero was first called up to represent Colombia for an under-16 tournament in Portugal in early 2020, where he featured in games against
Germany
Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...
, the
Netherlands
)
, anthem = ( en, "William of Nassau")
, image_map =
, map_caption =
, subdivision_type = Sovereign state
, subdivision_name = Kingdom of the Netherlands
, established_title = Before independence
, established_date = Spanish Netherl ...
and hosts
Portugal
Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...
. He was called up to the under-20 side for the
2022 Maurice Revello Tournament
The 2022 Maurice Revello Tournament (officially french: 48ème Festival International "Espoirs" – Tournoi Maurice Revello), was the 48th edition of the Maurice Revello Tournament, an annual, international, age-restricted football tournament, wh ...
, expressing his pride in being able to represent the nation. He would go on to feature in one game, coming on as a second-half substitution for Daniel Luna in a 2–1 win against
Japan
Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...
, as Colombia finished fourth in the tournament.
Ahead of the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup, Quintero was controversially left out of the preliminary squad by manager Héctor Cárdenas, with Cárdenas stating that despite Quintero being on the list of considered players, he had opted to call up Daniel Luna instead. Quintero responded by posting his season statistics on his personal
Twitter
Twitter is an online social media and social networking service owned and operated by American company Twitter, Inc., on which users post and interact with 280-character-long messages known as "tweets". Registered users can post, like, and ...
account, as well as stating "there are things that do not depend on oneself, but life keeps us firm". He followed this up with a Tweet congratulating his compariots on their call-ups.
Quintero remains eligible to represent Spain at international level, and the
Royal Spanish Football Federation
The Royal Spanish Football Federation ( es, Real Federación Española de Fútbol; RFEF) is the governing body of football in Spain. It is based in La Ciudad del Fútbol of Las Rozas, a municipality near Madrid. It was founded on 14 October 1909 ...
(RFEF) first showed interest in the forward in May 2022, with Spanish sports radio programme
Carrusel Deportivo
Carrusel Deportivo is a Spanish sports program broadcast on Cadena SER. It could be compared with '' 5 live Sport'' in the United Kingdom.
The program is transmitted on weekends from 3 pm to 1:30 am, and on Sundays only from 12 pm to 2:30 pm. It ...
stating that the RFEF were attempting to convince Quintero to switch allegiance. Following his snub from the Colombian under-20 side ahead of the 2023 FIFA U-20 World Cup, it was reported by another radio broadcaster,
Cadena SER
La Cadena SER (the SER Network) is Spain's premier radio network in terms of both seniority (it was created in 1924) and audience share (it had a regular listenership in 2018 of 4,139,000). The acronym SER stands for ''Sociedad Española de Radi ...
, that the RFEF would once again try to convince Quintero to represent Spain.
Style of play
In his youth career, Quintero mostly featured as both an enganche and a
right winger
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 ...
, and this continued during his time at Villarreal, where he also spent time playing 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 ...
. A left-footed player, he scored a number of goals for Villarreal's youth team by cutting in from the right wing and shooting.