Patricio Nehuén Pérez (born 24 June 2000) is an Argentine 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 plays as a

centre-back In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

for

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 ...

club

Porto Porto (), also known in English language, English as Oporto, is the List of cities in Portugal, second largest city in Portugal, after Lisbon. It is the capital of the Porto District and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto c ...

and the Argentina national team.

Club career

Pérez joined

Argentinos Juniors Asociación Atlética Argentinos Juniors is an Argentine sports club based in La Paternal, Buenos Aires. The club is mostly known for its association football, football team, which currently plays in the Argentine Primera División, and was reco ...

' system in 2007, after spells with La Quinta de Los Pibes and Unión de Tesei. He first appeared in the club's first-team squad under manager

Alfredo Berti Alfredo Jesús Berti (born 5 October 1971) is an Argentine football manager and former player who played as a midfielder. He is the current manager of Independiente Rivadavia. Career Berti managed Newell's Old Boys from 24 July 2013 to 11 April ...

during the

2017–18 Argentine Primera División The 2017–18 Argentine Primera División - Superliga Argentina (officially the Superliga Quilmes Clásica for sponsorship reasons) was the 128 season of top-flight professional football in Argentina. The season began on 25 August 2017 and ended ...

season which culminated with the defender making his debut in a

Copa Argentina The Copa Argentina (English: ''Argentine Cup''), officially known as the "Copa Argentina AXION energy" due to sponsorship reasons, is an official football cup competition organized by the Argentine Football Association (AFA). The first editions ...

tie with Independiente de Chivilcoy on 9 May 2018. In July, Pérez was signed by

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

Atlético Madrid Club Atlético de Madrid, S.A.D. (; meaning "Athletic Club of Madrid"), commonly referred to as Atlético Madrid or simply Atlético, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid that plays in La Liga. The club play their home game ...

. He was immediately loaned back to Argentinos Juniors. Pérez was an unused substitute ten times in 2018–19, before making his league debut during a 2–1 defeat to Tigre on 12 November. On 10 July 2019, Pérez joined the newly promoted

side Famalicão on a season-long loan. His opening appearance for them came 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 ...

versus

Covilhã Covilhã (), officially Covilhã City (), is a city and a concelho, municipality in the Centro, Portugal, Centro region, Portugal. The city proper had 33,691 inhabitants in 2021. The municipality population in 2021 was 46,455 in an area of . It is ...

on 3 August. He scored his first senior goal on 31 August, netting in a league victory away from home against

Aves Birds are a group of warm-blooded vertebrates constituting the class Aves (), characterised by feathers, toothless beaked jaws, the laying of hard-shelled eggs, a high metabolic rate, a four-chambered heart, and a strong yet lightweight ...

. He was named as the league's best defender for August. In total, Pérez appeared twenty-five times during his time with Famalicão as they placed sixth. He returned to his parent club ahead of the

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

season, subsequently going unused on the bench for all three of Atlético's opening La Liga fixtures. On 5 October 2020, Pérez was loaned to fellow La Liga side

Granada Granada ( ; ) is the capital city of the province of Granada, in the autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain. Granada is located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada (Spain), Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence ...

. He made his debut on 25 October away to

Getafe Getafe () is a municipalities in Spain, municipality and a city in Spain belonging to the Community of Madrid. , it has a population of 180,747, the region's sixth most populated municipality. Getafe is located 13 km south of Madrid's city c ...

, which preceded his first

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 ...

appearances arriving on 5 November in Cyprus against Omonia. On 28 August 2021, Pérez joined Italian side Udinese on a season-long loan. On 29 July 2022, he transferred to Udinese, signing a five-year contract. On 30 August 2024, Pérez moved on loan to

, with an option to buy.

International career

Pérez represented Argentina at U17 level, making four appearances at the

2017 South American U-17 Championship The 2017 South American Under-17 Football Championship (, ) was the 17th edition of the South American Under-17 Football Championship, a association football, football competition for the under-17 national teams in South America organized by CONME ...

in Chile. He also trained with the senior squad in June 2017 and at the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded t ...

. In December 2018, Pérez was selected for the

2019 South American U-20 Championship The 2019 South American U-20 Championship was the 29th edition of the South American U-20 Championship (, ), the biennial international youth football championship organised by CONMEBOL for the men's under-20 national teams of South America. It wa ...

Fernando Batista Fernando Ariel Batista (born 20 August 1970) is an Argentine football manager and former player who played as a defender. He is the current manager of the Venezuela national team. Playing career Born in Buenos Aires, Batista started his playi ...

called up Pérez for the subsequent

2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 22nd edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 a ...

in Poland, where he scored once in three games. Batista also picked Pérez for the U23s in the succeeding September for a Bolivia friendly. Pérez received his first senior call for November 2019 friendlies with

Brazil Brazil, officially the Federative Republic of Brazil, is the largest country in South America. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by area, fifth-largest country by area and the List of countries and dependencies by population ...

and

Uruguay Uruguay, officially the Oriental Republic of 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 the Río de la Plata to the south and the A ...

Career statistics

Club

International

Honours

Argentina U23 * Pre-Olympic Tournament:

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 ...

Individual *

Defender of the Month: September 2019

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Perez, Nehuen 2000 births Living people Footballers from Hurlingham Partido Argentine men's footballers Argentina men's youth international footballers Argentina men's under-20 international footballers Men's association football central defenders Argentine expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Spain Expatriate men's footballers in Portugal Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Spain Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Portugal Argentine expatriate sportspeople in Italy Argentine Primera División players Primeira Liga players La Liga players Serie A players Argentinos Juniors footballers Atlético Madrid footballers F.C. Famalicão players Granada CF footballers Udinese Calcio players FC Porto players Olympic footballers for Argentina Footballers at the 2020 Summer Olympics 21st-century Argentine sportsmen