Sebastian Abreu - The Explorer
‘El Loco’ - The story of Sebastian Abreu
Uruguayan striker Sebastián Abreu nicknamed “El Loco” has a record of playing for the most amount of professional clubs in football history (29).
In his 24-year career, he played in 10 different countries between 1995 and 2019.
Abreu’s early career and the move to Europe
El Loco began his career with Defensor in the Uruguayan Primera División and scored 13 goals in 24 games before earning the first move of his storied career to Argentinian side San Lorenzo in 1996.
After a successful spell there Abreu got his first move to Europe with La Liga side Deportivo La Coruña. Despite being at the club for 6 years from 1998-2004 he only played 15 games and scored 3 goals going on loan 7 times in this spell to clubs across the Americas.
From 2004-2009 he played for a host of clubs which included a 1 game spell in Israel at Beitar Jerusalem. He eventually signed for River Plate but was whisked off on loan to Real Sociedad without playing any league football because of registration issues.
At Sociedad he scored 11 in 18 before another move came about when River Plate sold him to Greek side Aris Thessaloniki. Again the inevitable happened and El Loco would be off within months to Botafogo in Brazil in 2010.
The story would be much the same from 2012 onwards after leaving Botafogo, as Abreu spent no more than a year at 13 different clubs all the way up to 2019 when he retired whilst playing for Boston River in Uruguay.
During his career Abreu accumulated 2 League titles in Argentina with San Lorenzo in 2001 and River Plate in 2008, an Uruguayan league title in 2001 with Nacional and 2 Apertura’s in 2003 and 2004 for them, along with the league title in El Salvador in 2016 playing for Santa Tecla.
‘EL Loco’ in PES 2019
Internationally Abreu played his best football, playing 70 times and scoring 26 goals for Uruguay putting him 7th on the all time top scorers list. He was also part of the squad which won the 2011 Copa América.
The most iconic moment of his career came when he scored the winning penalty in the 2010 World Cup QF shootout against Ghana when he scored a paneka to put Uruguay into their first WC SF for 40 years.
Abreu scored 346 goals in his club career in 686 appearances but doesn’t make our list of the Greatest Uruguayan players of all time.
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