Iván Ramiro Córdoba Sepúlveda (, born 11 August 1976) is a retired 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 ...

, who played as a defender. He began his career in Colombia with Deportivo Rionegro and

Atlético Nacional Atlético Nacional S. A., best known as Atlético Nacional, is a Colombian professional football club based in Medellín. The club is one of only three clubs to have played in every first division tournament in the country's history, the oth ...

, before moving to Argentine club San Lorenzo. In 2000, he joined Italian side

Internazionale Football Club Internazionale Milano, commonly referred to as Internazionale () or simply Inter, and colloquially known as Inter Milan in English-speaking countries, is an Italian professional football club based in Milan, Lombardy. Inter is t ...

, where he spent most of his career, remaining with the club until his retirement in 2012. At international level, Córdoba played for the Colombia national team, and represented his nation at the 1998 FIFA World Cup, the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup, and four editions of the Copa América, winning the tournament in 2001, where he scored the winning goal in the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

. He was the vice-captain of Internazionale and has also served as captain for his country's national team. He is currently in charge as sporting director of Italian

Serie B The Serie B (), currently named Serie BKT for sponsorship reasons, is the second-highest division in the Italian football league system after the Serie A. It has been operating for over ninety years since the 1929–30 season. It had been ...

club

Venezia Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The islan ...

Club career

Córdoba made his debut with the Colombian Serie B team Deportivo Rionegro in 1993, his subsequent performances earned him a transfer to Colombian heavyweights

in 1996. He made his name playing for San Lorenzo in

Argentina Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...

from 1998 but signed for

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, an ethnic group or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance language *** Regional Ita ...

side Inter Milan the winter transfer window, January 2000, costing the club €16 million, rejecting another offer from Real Madrid in doing so. He has become a mainstay of the

defence for several years, forming a highly effective partnership in central defence with

Marco Materazzi Marco Materazzi (; born 19 August 1973) is an Italian former professional footballer and manager. Early in his career, Materazzi played with various Italian teams in Serie B and Serie C, and with Everton in the Premier League. He spent two p ...

. His long career at Inter led him to be named the club's vice-captain behind Javier Zanetti; because of this, he had the honour of lifting the

Coppa Italia The ("Italy Cup") is an annual knockout cup competition in Italian football organized by the FIGC until the 2009–10 season and the Lega Serie A ever since. History The beginning of the tournament was turbulent, due to the complexity of ...

in 2005 when Zanetti was absent due to his involvement in the

Confederations Cup The FIFA Confederations Cup was an international association football tournament for men's national teams, held every four years by FIFA. It was contested by the holders of each of the six continental championships (AFC, CAF, CONCACAF, CONMEBOL, ...

with Argentina. On 19 February 2008, Córdoba injured his left anterior cruciate ligament during the Champions League round of 16 fixture against

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

, resulting in having to sit out the rest of the

season A season is a division of the year based on changes in weather, ecology, and the number of daylight hours in a given region. On Earth, seasons are the result of the axial parallelism of Earth's tilted orbit around the Sun. In temperate and ...

as Inter won the league title for the third consecutive year. On 9 June 2008 he renewed his contract until 30 June 2012 with Inter, ensuring that he would effectively finish his career with Inter. On 5 May 2012 Córdoba announced that he would leave Inter at the end of the season. A day later, Córdoba was brought on in the 84th minute of the

Derby della Madonnina The Derby della Madonnina, also known as the Derby di Milano (Milan Derby, in English), is a derby football match between the two prominent Milanese clubs, Internazionale and A.C. Milan. It is called ''Derby della Madonnina'' in honour of one ...

, making his last competitive appearance in an Inter shirt after 13 years in the San Siro; during the match (the club's last home game of the 2011–12 season), Inter's players wore the Córdoba #2 shirt while warming up before the kick-off. In May, he traveled with 18 other Inter players (with Dellafiore an exception) to Indonesia for a friendly tour, before ending his career. In total, he won 5

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Cop ...

championships, 4

titles, 3 Supercoppa Italiana titles, 1

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

, and 1 FIFA Club World Cup with Inter.

International career

Córdoba captained Colombia to win the

2001 Copa América The 2001 Copa América was held in Colombia, from 11 to 29 July. It was organised by CONMEBOL, South America's football governing body. Colombia won the tournament for the 1st time without conceding a goal. Brazil were the defending champions wh ...

competition, scoring the only goal in the

. Córdoba also was called up for his country at the 1998 World Cup (taking shirt number 2 from Andrés Escobar who was murdered in the previous tournament) without appearing in a match, the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup (where they finished in fourth place), and in three other editions of the Copa América (

1997 File:1997 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The movie set of ''Titanic'', the highest-grossing movie in history at the time; '' Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone'', is published; Comet Hale-Bopp passes by Earth and becomes one of ...

1999 File:1999 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The funeral procession of King Hussein of Jordan in Amman; the 1999 İzmit earthquake kills over 17,000 people in Turkey; the Columbine High School massacre, one of the first major school shoot ...

, and 2007).

Post-playing career

On 10 February 2021, Córdoba was announced as the new sporting director of Italian

club

Style of play

Usually a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

, Córdoba was an experienced and extremely fast, energetic, versatile, and athletic defender, who relied mostly on his pace, stamina, man-marking ability and timing, which made him difficult to beat in one on one situations; due to his characteristics, he was also capable of playing as a full back or wing-back on the right flank, and even as a left-back on occasion. Despite being only 173 centimeters tall, he was also a good jumper and an accurate header of the ball, and had a penchant for scoring goals with his head. Throughout his career, Córdoba also stood out for his leadership in addition to his ability as a footballer.

Career statistics

Club

Source:

International

Source:

International goals

''Colombia score listed first, score column indicates score after each Córdoba goal.''

Honours

Club

;Internazionale *

: 2005–06, 2006–07, 2007–08, 2008–09, 2009–10 *

: 2004–05, 2005–06, 2009–10,

2010–11 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number representing a single or the only entity. 1 is also a numerical digit and represents a single unit of counting or measurement. For example, a line segment of ''unit length'' is a line segment of length 1. ...

* Supercoppa Italiana: 2005, 2006,

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

, 2010 *

: 2009–10 * FIFA Club World Cup: 2010

International

;Colombia * Copa América: 2001

Individual

*South American Team of the Year: 1999 *Pirata d'Oro (Internazionale Player of the Year): 2011

References

External links

*
inter.it profile
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cordoba, Ivan 1976 births Living people People from Rionegro Colombian footballers Association football central defenders Leones F.C. footballers Atlético Nacional footballers San Lorenzo de Almagro footballers Inter Milan players Categoría Primera B players Categoría Primera A players Argentine Primera División players Serie A players UEFA Champions League winning players Colombia international footballers 1997 Copa América players 1998 FIFA World Cup players 1999 Copa América players 2001 Copa América players 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup players 2007 Copa América players Copa América-winning players Colombian expatriate footballers Colombian expatriate sportspeople in Argentina Colombian expatriate sportspeople in Italy Expatriate footballers in Argentina Expatriate footballers in Italy Sportspeople from Antioquia Department