Ricardo Chará Lerma (born 24 May 1990) is a Colombian

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 defender, and who is currently a free agent.

Club career

Early career

Chara started his youth career with his hometown club

Cali Santiago de Cali (), or Cali, is the capital of the Valle del Cauca department, and the most populous city in southwest Colombia, with 2,280,522 residents estimate by National Administrative Department of Statistics, DANE in 2023. The city span ...

. He then made his first team debut for

Centauros Villavicencio Corporación Deportiva Centauros Villavicencio, was a Colombian association football, football club based in the city of Villavicencio. The club was founded on 14 January 2003 and played its home games at the Estadio Bello Horizonte, Manuel Calle ...

in the

Categoría Primera B Categoría Primera B, commonly referred to as Torneo BetPlay Dimayor due to Sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by online betting company BetPlay, is the second-division association football, football league in Colombia. The tournament was inaugura ...

Udinese

In summer 2008, he was signed by

Deportes Quindío Deportes Quindío is a Colombian professional football club based in Armenia that currently plays in the Categoría Primera B. The club was founded on 8 January 1951, and its best achievement was winning the 1956 league tournament. They play thei ...

. He then scouted by

Udinese Udinese Calcio (; "Udinese Football") is a professional football club based in Udine, Friuli-Venezia Giulia, Italy. The team currently competes in the Serie A, the first tier of Italian football. It was founded on 30 November 1896 as a sport ...

. As the club run out of non-EU registration quota, as signed

Alexis Alexis may refer to: People Mononym * Alexis (poet) ( – ), a Greek comic poet * Alexis (sculptor), an ancient Greek artist who lived around the 3rd or 4th century BC * Alexis (singer) (born 1968), German pop singer * Alexis (comics) (1946– ...

and

Odion Ighalo Odion Jude Ighalo (born 16 June 1989) is a Nigerian professional Association football, footballer who plays as a Forward (association football), forward for Saudi Pro League club Al Wehda FC, Al-Wehda. After starting his career at Nigerian clu ...

. Along with new signing

Dušan Basta Dušan Basta ( sr-Cyrl, Душан Баста, ; born 18 August 1984) is a Serbian former professional footballer who played as a right-sided full-back. Basta made his international debut for Serbia and Montenegro in 2005, and later was selecte ...

, they were signed by another Italian club, then re-signed them in order to borrow the quota. Chara left for

Cagliari Cagliari (, , ; ; ; Latin: ''Caralis'') is an Comune, Italian municipality and the capital and largest city of the island of Sardinia, an Regions of Italy#Autonomous regions with special statute, autonomous region of Italy. It has about 146,62 ...

on a 1-year loan from Quindío on 1 September 2008. In January 2009, Chara left "on loan" from Cagliari to Udinese and played at Udinese Primavera under-20 team. In summer 2009, along with Basta, they were signed permanently. On 14 January 2010, he played his first match for Udinese. He substituted

Simone Pepe Simone Pepe (; born 30 August 1983) is an Italian former footballer who played as a winger, on either side of the pitch. After starting out at Roma, he went on to compete in Serie A for 12 seasons, spending most of his time at Udinese and Juven ...

in the 87th minute, on a

Coppa Italia Coppa Italia () is the annual domestic cup of Italian football. The knockout competition was organized by the DDS and the Lega Calcio until the 2009–10 season and by Lega Serie A ever since. Juventus is the competition's most successf ...

Round of 16 match. The match Udinese won

Lumezzane Lumezzane (, locally ) is a town and (municipality) in the province of Brescia, in the Italian region of Lombardy. With a population of 22,255 (), it is one of the largest towns in its province. It is situated in the Gobbia Valley, which is a s ...

of Italian

Lega Pro Prima Divisione Serie C1 was the third highest football league in Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into ...

(third division) 2–0. On 31 August 2010,

signed Gabriele Angella along with Diego Fabbrini in co-ownership deal for €3 million.Empoli FC SpA ''bilancio'' (financial report and accounts) on 30 June 2011
PDF purchased from Italian CCIAA
/ref> As part of the deal, Chará and Flavio Lazzari joined

Empoli Empoli () is a town and ''comune'' in the Metropolitan City of Florence, Tuscany, Italy, about southwest of Florence, to the south of the Arno River, Arno in a plain formed by the river. The plain has been usable for agriculture since Ancient Ro ...

, also in co-ownership deal for a peppercorn in 3-year contract. In June 2012 Udinese reacquired Chará.

International career

At youth level, Chará has been capped for Colombia at the 2005

South American Under-15 Football Championship The South American U-15 Championship (; ), branded as CONMEBOL Sub 15, is a South American association football competition held every two years contested by male players under the age of 15 and is organized by CONMEBOL, the governing body for foot ...

(4 games 1 brace), at the

2007 South American Under-17 Football Championship The 2007 South American Under-17 Football Championship was played in Ecuador from 4 to 25 March 2007. The seven venues of the competition were the cities of Ambato, Ecuador, Ambato, Azogues, Cuenca, Ecuador, Cuenca, Ibarra, Ecuador, Ibarra, Latacu ...

(8 games, 1 goal), at the

2007 FIFA U-17 World Cup The FIFA U-17 World Cup 2007, the twelfth edition of the tournament, was held in South Korea between 18 August and 9 September 2007. For this event, the number of teams had been expanded from 16 to 24, with the top two of each group and the four ...

(4 games), and at the

2009 South American Youth Championship The 2009 South American Youth Championship (Sudamericano sub-20) was a football competition for national teams U-20 who are associated with the football federation CONMEBOL. It was the 24th time the tournament was held and took place in Venezuela ...

(2 games 1 goal).http://old.conmebol.com/competiciones_evento_partidos.jsp?evento=1052&ano=2009&slangab=S

References

External links

*
Profile at Udinese Calcio

Profile at La Gazzetta dello Sport
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chara, Ricardo 1990 births Living people Footballers from Cali Colombian men's footballers Colombia men's under-20 international footballers 21st-century Colombian sportsmen Colombian expatriate men's footballers Serie B players Centauros Villavicencio footballers Cagliari Calcio players Udinese Calcio players Empoli FC players Expatriate men's footballers in Italy Men's association football defenders Colombian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Pan American Games footballers for Colombia