Mario Junior Rondón Fernández (; born 26 March 1986) is a Venezuelan former 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 lea ...

who played as a striker.

Club career

Born in

Los Teques Los Teques () is the capital of the state of Miranda, and the municipality of Guaicaipuro in north-central Venezuela. The city is about 25 km southwest of Caracas, and above mean sea level. It lies in the Cordillera de la Costa, on the ba ...

, Miranda, Rondón arrived in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic, is a country on the Iberian Peninsula in Southwestern Europe. Featuring Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe, Portugal borders Spain to its north and east, with which it share ...

at age 18, finishing his junior career with A.D. Pontassolense. He then proceeded to play a further four seasons with the third division club. After scoring 11 goals in his last year, Rondón moved straight into the

Primeira Liga The Primeira Liga (), also known as Liga Portugal Betclic for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Portugal and the highest level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga ...

after signing with F.C. Paços de Ferreira in May 2009. Rarely used in his debut season, he finished it on loan to Segunda Liga's S.C. Beira-Mar, featuring relatively as the Aveiro team returned to the top flight after a three-year absence. Rondón returned to Paços for

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

. In the first game of the campaign, against

Sporting CP Sporting Clube de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP or simply Sporting (particularly within Portugal), or as Sporting Lisbon in other countries,

on 14 August, he scored the only goal for a home win, eventually finishing as the side's top scorer with nine league goals and adding four in their runner-up run in the

Taça da Liga The Taça da Liga (), known outside Portugal as Portuguese League Cup, is an annual club football competition organised by the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (LPFP) for teams competing in the top two tiers of Portuguese football – the ...

( 2–1 final loss to S.L. Benfica). On 14 July 2011, Rondón joined C.D. Nacional on a five-year contract, for an undisclosed fee. He scored a career-best 12 goals in 30 games in his

third year Third or 3rd may refer to: Numbers * 3rd, the ordinal form of the cardinal number 3 * , a fraction of one third * 1⁄60 of a ''second'', i.e., the third in a series of fractional parts in a sexagesimal number system Places * 3rd Street (di ...

, helping the

Madeira Madeira ( ; ), officially the Autonomous Region of Madeira (), is an autonomous Regions of Portugal, autonomous region of Portugal. It is an archipelago situated in the North Atlantic Ocean, in the region of Macaronesia, just under north of ...

ns to the playoff round of the

UEFA Europa League The UEFA Europa League (UEL), usually known simply as the Europa League, is an annual association football, football club competition organised since 1971 by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) for eligible European footb ...

. On 28 February 2015, Rondón transferred to

Chinese Super League The Chinese Football Super League (), commonly known as the Chinese Super League or the CSL (), also known as the China Resources Beverage Chinese Football Super League for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Ch ...

newcomers Shijiazhuang Ever Bright FC. He scored the club's first-ever goal in the competition on 9 March, but in a 2–1 defeat at Guangzhou Evergrande FC. In January 2018, after more than one year of inactivity, Rondón moved to Romania's CS Gaz Metan Mediaș for the remainder of the season. He made 21 appearances and netted ten times in all competitions, with fellow

Liga I Liga I (; ''First League''), also spelled as Liga 1 and officially known as SuperLiga for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Romania and the highest level of the Romanian football league system. Contested by 1 ...

team

CS Universitatea Craiova U Craiova 1948 Club Sportiv, commonly known as Universitatea Craiova (), CS U Craiova, or simply U Craiova, is a Romanian professional football club based in Craiova, Dolj County. It competes in the Liga I, the top tier of the Romanian league ...

reportedly showing interest in signing the forward. Rondón rejoined Shijiazhuang on 29 June 2018, aged 32. In May 2019, he signed a contract with Romanian champions

CFR Cluj Fotbal Club CFR 1907 Cluj, commonly known as CFR Cluj ( or ) or simply CFR, is a Romanian professional association football, football club based in the city of Cluj-Napoca, Cluj County, that competes in the Liga I. Founded as ''Kolozsvári Vasut ...

. He scored his first league goal for the latter on 23 February 2020 in a 2–0 away victory over Universitatea Craiova, adding another in the Europa League group stage against

Stade Rennais F.C. Stade Rennais Football Club (SRFC, ), commonly referred to as Stade Rennais () or simply Rennes,''Rennais'' and ''Stade Rennes'', used by some English-speaking media outlets and journalists, are not grammatically correct names for the club. is ...

(1–0 at home, where he was sent off after only three minutes on the pitch) to help his team to progress to the knockout stages.

International career

Rondón earned his first

cap A cap is a flat headgear, usually with a visor. Caps have crowns that fit very close to the head. They made their first appearance as early as 3200 BC. The origin of the word "cap" comes from the Old French word "chapeau" which means "head co ...

for

Venezuela Venezuela, officially the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, is a country on the northern coast of South America, consisting of a continental landmass and many Federal Dependencies of Venezuela, islands and islets in the Caribbean Sea. It com ...

on 25 March 2011, coming on as a 78th-minute substitute for Alejandro Moreno in a 2–0 friendly away win over

Jamaica Jamaica is an island country in the Caribbean Sea and the West Indies. At , it is the third-largest island—after Cuba and Hispaniola—of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean. Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, west of Hispaniola (the is ...

. He scored his first goal in another exhibition match, a 3–1 loss in

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

on 5 September 2014.

Career statistics

Club

International

:''Scores and results list Venezuela's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Rondón goal.''

Honours

Beira-Mar * Segunda Liga: 2009–10 Paços de Ferreira *

runner-up:

Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira The Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (; English: Cândido de Oliveira Super Cup, or simply Portuguese Super Cup) is an annual Portuguese association football, football match played since 1979 between the winners of the top-tier league (Primeira L ...

runner-up:

2009 2009 was designated as the International Year of Astronomy by the United Nations to coincide with the 400th anniversary of Galileo Galilei's first known astronomical studies with a telescope and the publication of Astronomia Nova by Joha ...

CFR Cluj *

: 2019–20, 2020–21 *

Supercupa României The Supercupa României () is a Romanian football (soccer), football championship contested by the winners of the Liga I and the Cupa României. It is usually played at the Arena Națională in Bucharest. The competition started off in 1994 Supe ...

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

Sepsi OSK *

Cupa României The Cupa României () is a Association football, football cup competition for List of football clubs in Romania, Romanian teams which has been held annually since 1933–34 Cupa României, 1933–34, except during World War II. It is the Romania ...

: 2022–23 *Supercupa României:

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Rondon, Mario 1986 births Living people People from Los Teques Footballers from Miranda (state) Venezuelan men's footballers Men's association football forwards Primeira Liga players Liga Portugal 2 players Segunda Divisão players Liga 3 (Portugal) players F.C. Paços de Ferreira players S.C. Beira-Mar players C.D. Nacional players Académica de Coimbra (football) players Chinese Super League players China League One players Cangzhou Mighty Lions F.C. players Liga I players CS Gaz Metan Mediaș players CFR Cluj players Sepsi OSK Sfântu Gheorghe players Ekstraklasa players Radomiak Radom players Venezuela men's international footballers Venezuelan expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in China Expatriate men's footballers in Romania Expatriate men's footballers in Poland Venezuelan expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Venezuelan expatriate sportspeople in China Venezuelan expatriate sportspeople in Romania Venezuelan expatriate sportspeople in Poland