Francisco Javier Pérez Villarroya (born 6 August 1966) is a Spanish former

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 ...

who played mostly as a

left 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 ...

Club career

Born in

Zaragoza Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

, Villarroya made his professional debut with hometown's

Real Zaragoza Real Zaragoza, S.A.D. (), commonly referred to as Zaragoza, is a football club based in Zaragoza, Aragon, Spain, that currently competes in the Segunda División, the second tier of the Spanish league system. Zaragoza holds its home games at L ...

, appearing in one

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' ...

game in the 1984–85 season (a 4–0 away loss against

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Found ...

) but being almost exclusively connected with the reserves for three years.Javier Villarroya: "En el Zaragoza viví los mejores años de mi vida y creo que triunfé" (Javier Villarroya: "I had the best years of my life at Zaragoza and I think I made it there")

El Periódico de Aragón ''El Periódico de Aragón'' is an Aragonese daily newspaper, founded in Zaragoza, on 23 October 1990 by Juancho Dumall. It is published by the Grupo Zeta and whose information focuses primarily on Section Aragon, Opinion and Sports. History '' ...

, 12 May 2014 (in Spanish) In the summer of 1990, after helping the Aragonese to two consecutive top-ten finishes in the top division – fifth in the 1988–89 campaign, with the subsequent

qualification Qualification is either the process of qualifying for an achievement, or a credential attesting to that achievement, and may refer to: * Professional qualification, attributes developed by obtaining academic degrees or through professional exper ...

for the

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, clay ...

– whilst only missing a total of two matches, he signed with Real Madrid, being occasionally utilised as

left-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

during his four-year spell and being the capital side's first choice prior to the signing of Brazilian

Roberto Carlos Roberto Carlos da Silva Rocha (born 10 April 1973), commonly known as Roberto Carlos, is a Brazilian former professional footballer who now works as a football ambassador. He started his career in Brazil as a forward but spent most of his car ...

, battling for the position with

Mikel Lasa Mikel Lasa Goikoetxea (born 9 September 1971) is a Spanish football retired player and current manager. He played as a left back. He currently manages Futuro Kings FC in Equatorial Guinea. He played 267 La Liga matches over 13 seasons ( ...

. After just 13 league appearances in his last two years at the

Santiago Bernabéu Stadium The Santiago Bernabéu Stadium ( es, Estadio Santiago Bernabéu, ) is a football stadium in Madrid, Spain. With a current seating capacity of 81,044, it has been the home stadium of Real Madrid since its completion in 1947. It is the second-larg ...

, following the arrival of manager

Benito Floro Benito Floro Sanz (born 2 June 1952) is a Spanish football manager. Football career Floro was born in Gijón, Asturias. During his professional career he managed Albacete Balompié (two spells, starting off in 1989 in Segunda División B and ...

, Villarroya joined

Deportivo de La Coruña Real Club Deportivo de La Coruña (), commonly known as Deportivo La Coruña (), Deportivo or simply Dépor, is a professional football club based in the city of A Coruña, Galicia, Spain. They currently play in the Primera División RFEF – ...

, being relatively used and adding another

Copa del Rey The Campeonato de España–Copa de Su Majestad el Rey, commonly known as Copa del Rey or simply La Copa and formerly known as Copa del Presidente de la República (1932–36) and Copa del Generalísimo (1939–76), is an annual knockout footb ...

to his trophy cabinet.¿Qué fue de los héroes del Superdépor? (What happened to the heroes of Superdépor?)

La Voz de Galicia ''La Voz de Galicia'' ( en, The Voice of Galicia) is a Spanish daily newspaper owned by the Corporación Voz de Galicia. ''La Voz'' is highest circulation newspaper in Galicia and the eighth-highest circulation general-interest daily newspaper ...

, 28 March 2019 (in Spanish) Still in the top tier, he then represented

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, ...

, suffering relegation at the end of his second season. Villarroya closed out his career at the age of 32 after one year with CD Badajoz in the Segunda División, amassing top-flight totals of 276 matches and nine goals over 14 seasons.

International career

Villarroya earned 14

caps Caps are flat headgear. Caps or CAPS may also refer to: Science and technology Computing * CESG Assisted Products Service, provided by the U.K. Government Communications Headquarters * Composite Application Platform Suite, by Java Caps, a Ja ...

for the Spain national team in slightly more than two years, and was in the squad for the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy, playing all the games (mostly in the back sector) in an eventual round-of-16 exit. His debut came on 20 September 1989 in a 1–0 friendly win over

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

A Coruña A Coruña (; es, La Coruña ; historical English: Corunna or The Groyne) is a city and municipality of Galicia, Spain. A Coruña is the most populated city in Galicia and the second most populated municipality in the autonomous community and s ...

, featuring the full 90 minutes as a Zaragoza player.

Personal life

Villarroya's nephew, Ángel Lafita, was also a footballer (and a midfielder). He played the vast majority of his career with Zaragoza and Deportivo.«Los sentimientos no se venden: siempre seré zaragocista» ("You can't sell feelings: I will always be a ''zaragocista''")
Heraldo de Aragón, 11 June 2011 (in Spanish)

Honours

Real Madrid *

1992–93 Year 199 ( CXCIX) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was sometimes known as year 952 '' Ab urbe condita''. The denomination 199 for this year has been used since t ...

* Supercopa de España:

1990 File:1990 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 1990 FIFA World Cup is played in Italy; The Human Genome Project is launched; Voyager I takes the famous Pale Blue Dot image- speaking on the fragility of humanity on Earth, astrophysicist ...

Deportivo *Copa del Rey: 1994–95

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Villarroya, Francisco 1966 births Living people Spanish footballers Footballers from Zaragoza Association football defenders Association football midfielders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players Real Zaragoza B players Real Zaragoza players Real Madrid CF players Deportivo de La Coruña players Sporting de Gijón players CD Badajoz players Spain international footballers 1990 FIFA World Cup players