Francisco "Paco" Gallardo León (born 13 January 1980) is a Spanish

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 ...

manager Management (or managing) is the administration of an organization, whether it is a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government body. It is the art and science of managing resources of the business. Management includes the activities o ...

and former player who played 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 ...

. He is currently the u21 manager at

Leeds United Leeds United Football Club is a professional football club based in Leeds, West Yorkshire in England. The club competes in the Premier League, the highest level of England's football league system, and plays its home matches at Elland Road S ...

Club career

Sevilla

Born in

Seville Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

Andalusia Andalusia (, ; es, Andalucía ) is the southernmost Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community in Peninsular Spain. It is the most populous and the second-largest autonomous community in the country. It is officially recognised as a ...

, and a product of hometown club

Sevilla FC Sevilla Fútbol Club () is a Spanish professional football club based in Seville, the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. It plays in Spanish football's top flight, La Liga. Sevilla have won the UEFA Euro ...

's youth system, Gallardo made his first-team debut aged 20, being instrumental in their

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 ...

return to

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known simply as Primera División in Spain, and as La Liga in English-speaking countries and officially as LaLiga Santander for sponsorship reasons, stylized as LaLiga, is the men's ...

and proceeding to have a further two solid seasons with the main squad. In November of that year, he was fined and suspended by 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 ...

for violating standards of "sporting dignity and decorum" after he congratulated teammate

José Antonio Reyes José Antonio Reyes Calderón (; 1 September 1983 – 1 June 2019) was a Spanish professional footballer who played mainly as a left winger and also as a forward. He made his debut for Sevilla aged 16 and signed for English club Arsenal in Ja ...

, who had just scored, by a disrespectful celebration biting him. After a relatively successful loan at

Getafe CF Getafe Club de Fútbol (), or simply Getafe, is a professional football club based in Getafe, a city in the Community of Madrid. The team competes in La Liga, the highest tier of the Spanish football system. The club's home stadium (owned and op ...

, helping the

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

side

retain RETAIN is a mainframe based Database management system, database system, accessed via IBM 3270 terminals (or more likely, emulators), used internally within IBM providing service support to IBM field personnel and customers. The acronym RETAIN sta ...

their newly acquired top division status, Gallardo's career would be very irregular: he served two unassuming loans in early 2006, starting with

Vitória S.C. Vitória Sport Clube, commonly known as Vitória de Guimarães, is a Portuguese professional football club based in Guimarães that competes in the Primeira Liga, the top-flight of football in Portugal. Vitória de Guimarães have finished thir ...

from

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 ...

, then moved in the 2006–07 campaign to

Real Murcia Real Murcia Club de Fútbol, S.A.D., commonly known as Real Murcia (, "Royal Murcia"), is a Spanish football club based in Murcia, in the Región de Murcia. Founded in 1919, it currently plays in Primera División RFEF – Group 2, playing ho ...

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 ...

, still on contract to Sevilla.

Murcia

Gallardo signed on a permanent basis prior to the start of 2007–08, but could only appear in ten league matches in an eventual relegation from the top flight. In the following season he was ousted from the squad alongside

José María Movilla José María Movilla Cubero (born 8 February 1975) is a Spanish retired professional footballer who played mainly as a central midfielder. He played 299 La Liga matches in exactly ten seasons, representing mainly Zaragoza and retiring at 39. C ...

by manager

Javier Clemente Javier Clemente Lázaro (; born 12 March 1950) is a Spanish football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. Forced to retire from playing in his early 20s through injury, he embarked on a coaching career with his first managerial ...

, and spent several months without a team, being reinstated in March 2009 after the coach's dismissal; he was finally released in June.

Later years

On 12 November 2009, Gallardo joined another club in the second level,

SD Huesca Sociedad Deportiva Huesca, S.A.D., is a Spanish football club in Huesca, in the autonomous community of Aragon. Founded on 29 March 1960, SD Huesca plays in the Segunda División, having played in the Spanish top division for the first time in t ...

, after a successful week's trial. He finished his career at the age of 34, after three years in Hungary with two teams. Gallardo returned to the

Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium The Ramón Sánchez Pizjuán Stadium ( es, Estadio Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán; ) is a football stadium in Seville, Spain. It is the home stadium of Sevilla Fútbol Club, and is named after the club's former president, Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán (190 ...

in the summer of 2015, first being in charge of the academy and later being appointed at the helm of the amateur team in

Tercera División Tercera División ( en, Third Division) was the fourth tier of the Spanish football league system. Founded in 1929, it was below the ''Primera División'' (also known as La Liga), the ''Segunda División'', and the semi-professional ''Segunda Di ...

, with

Carlos Marchena Carlos Marchena López (; born 31 July 1979) is a Spanish retired footballer, and a manager. Mainly a central defender with an aggressive approach, he also played as a defensive midfielder. Most of his professional career (nine years) was spen ...

as his assistant. In November 2022 Gallardo joined

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Foo ...

side

as a 1st team coach working with

Jesse Marsch Jesse Alan Marsch (born November 8, 1973) is an American professional soccer coach and former player who is the current head coach of club Leeds United. Marsch played 14 seasons as a midfielder in Major League Soccer (MLS) with D.C. United, ...

. Gallardo was named co-interim head coach alongside Michael Skubala and

Chris Armas Christopher Armas (born August 27, 1972) is an American professional soccer coach and former player. He is currently sharing interim head coach duties at Leeds United with Michael Skubala and Paco Gallardo after the sacking of Jesse Marsch. ...

following the sacking of Jesse Marsch in February. Gallardo oversaw a 2-2 draw with Manchester United

Managerial statistics

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Gallardo, Paco 1980 births Living people Footballers from Seville Spanish footballers Association football midfielders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players Sevilla Atlético players Sevilla FC players Getafe CF footballers Deportivo de La Coruña players Real Murcia players SD Huesca footballers Primeira Liga players Vitória S.C. players Nemzeti Bajnokság I players Diósgyőri VTK players Puskás Akadémia FC players Spain youth international footballers Spain under-21 international footballers Spanish expatriate footballers Expatriate footballers in Portugal Expatriate footballers in Hungary Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Hungary Spanish football managers Primera Federación managers Segunda División B managers Tercera División managers Sevilla Atlético managers