Luis Héctor Cristaldo Ruiz Díaz (born August 31, 1969 in

Formosa, Argentina Formosa () is the capital city of the Argentine province of Formosa, on the banks of the Paraguay River, opposite the Paraguayan city of Alberdi, about north from Buenos Aires, on National Route 11. The city has a population of about 234,000 ...

) is an Argentine-born Bolivian football

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 ...

. He is Bolivia's national team record cap holder alongside

Marco Sandy Marco Antonio Sandy Sansusty (born 29 August 1971) is a Bolivian football manager and former player who played as a defender. He is the current assistant manager of Jorge Wilstermann. Playing career Club On club level he spent the majority o ...

Club career

Born in Argentina, he relocated to

Santa Cruz, Bolivia Santa Cruz de la Sierra (; "Holy Cross of the Mountain Range"), commonly known as Santa Cruz, is the largest city in Bolivia and the capital of the Santa Cruz department. Situated on the Pirai River in the eastern Tropical Lowlands of Bolivia ...

at the age of 15. Cristaldo then began attending the prestigious Tahuichi football academy, and by the time he was 18 years old he made his official debut in first division. He played for Bolivian teams

Oriente Petrolero Club Deportivo Oriente Petrolero () is a Bolivian football club based in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia. They play at the 38,000-capacity Estadio Tahuichi Aguilera. Oriente have been Bolivian champions five times, Copa Aerosur winners two ti ...

(1990–92) and Bolívar (1993–98), winning 4 national titles combined during those years. In 1998, he went abroad to play for

Sporting de Gijón Real Sporting de Gijón, S.A.D. (), commonly known as Real Sporting, Sporting Gijón, or simply Sporting (although in an international context this can lead to confusion with Sporting Clube de Portugal) is a Spanish football club from Gijón, ...

in Spain and later with

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 ...

and Sol de América in Paraguay, not to mention a previous spell he had during 1994 with Argentine club Mandiyú de Corrientes and legendary

Diego Maradona Diego Armando Maradona (; 30 October 196025 November 2020) was an Argentine professional football player and manager. Widely regarded as one of the greatest players in the history of the sport, he was one of the two joint winners of the F ...

as the manager. In 2001, Cristaldo returned to Bolivia and played with The Strongest for the next six years. In 2007, during his second spell with Oriente Petrolero he called it quits, laying his football career to rest permanently after seventeen years of professional football.

International career

Cristaldo played at the

1987 FIFA U-16 World Championship The FIFA U-16 World Championship 1987, the second edition of the tournament, was hosted by Canada and held in the cities of Montreal, Saint John, St. John's, and Toronto between 12 July and 25 July 1987. Players born after 1 August 1970 could p ...

in Canada. He and

hold the record for the most appearances for the Bolivia national team with 93 international matches and 5 goals between 1989 and 2005, including two appearances in the

1994 FIFA World Cup The 1994 FIFA World Cup was the 15th FIFA World Cup, the world championship for men's national soccer teams. It was hosted by the United States and took place from June 17 to July 17, 1994, at nine venues across the country. The United States ...

.rsssf: Bolivia record international footballers
Cristaldo made his international debut on September 10, 1989 in a World Cup Qualifier against

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 ...

in Montevideo (2-0 loss) and equalled Sandy's record in his final match against

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

in October 2005. He represented his country in 33 FIFA World Cup qualification matches and at the 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Honours

Club

(1) **

Liga de Fútbol Profesional Boliviano Liga or LIGA may refer to: People * Līga (name), a Latvian female given name * Luciano Ligabue, more commonly known as Ligabue or ''Liga'', Italian rock singer-songwriter Sports * Liga ACB, men's professional basketball league in Spain * Liga ...

: 1990 * Bolívar (3) **

: 1994, 1996, 1997 * The Strongest (3) **

: 2003 (A), 2003 (C), 2004 (C)

References

External links

*
BDFA profile

comunidadboliviana article

Argentine Primera statistics
at Fútbol XXI {{DEFAULTSORT:Cristaldo, Luis 1969 births Living people People from Formosa Province Argentine emigrants to Bolivia Naturalized citizens of Bolivia Association football defenders Argentine footballers Bolivian footballers Bolivia international footballers Bolivia youth international footballers 1993 Copa América players 1995 Copa América players 1997 Copa América players 1999 Copa América players 1994 FIFA World Cup players 1999 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2004 Copa América players Oriente Petrolero players Club Bolívar players Textil Mandiyú footballers Sporting de Gijón players Cerro Porteño players The Strongest players Guabirá players Bolivian expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Spain Expatriate footballers in Paraguay Bolivian Primera División players La Liga players Club Deportivo Guabirá managers