Penalty Stealing Mexican Nery Castillo to Join Manchester City

By: Daryl | December 18th, 2007

Nery Castillo to Man City For all the talent that comes out of Mexico, we’re still waiting for a player from El Tri to make his mark in the English Premier League. Jared Borgetti became the first Mexican to set foot in the Premiership back in 2005 when he played for Bolton. He didn’t disgrace himself, but he was still gone by the end of the season. Wonderkid Carlos Vela may light up the league in the future, but the 18 year old Arsenal forward is currently doing his time on loan at Osasuna so we’ll have to wait a while to see him, probably in the Carling Cup. So the immediate future of Mexican players in the Premiership is Nery Castillo.

The well traveled and skillful 23 year old striker has joined Sven’s Manchester City revolution on loan from Ukraine’s Shakhtar Donetsk, covering a portion of the loan fee out of his own pocket after disgracing himself at Shakhtar with a penalty-stealing incident.

Castillo has scored 5 in 12 for El Tri, including four in the Copa America 2007. ~~Born in Urugauy he began playing in the domestic league~~ His career began at 15, playing in the Uruguayan league for Danubio. Interest from Manchester United followed the very next year, but that didn’t work out. British work permits are a bitch. Greek ones are a little easier though, so a teenage Castillo went to play for Olympiacos.

After seven years there he made an unwise €20 million move to Shakhtar, where it all went wrong. Having failed to score in his first few games for the Ukrainian side he finally cracked when his team won a penalty. He grabbed the ball and refused to hadn it to official Shakhtar penalty taker Cristiano Lucarelli, because he was so insanely desparate to get off the mark. Except Castillo’s spot-kick was saved and the Mexican was substituted. Not so sure he’ll be on Lucarelli’s Christmas card list this year.

And so the loan to Man City is the perfect escape from Castillo’s self-made Ukrainian hell. The one year deal is apparently costing €5 million, but with Castillo so keen to play that he’s paying some of that from his own pocket, Man City may have snagged themselves a bargain. When he’s on his game Castillo is deadly. Here’s what he did to Brazil at the Copa America this year.