Alejandro Magno Trujillo Obreke (26 March 1952 – 6 January 2020) was a

Chile Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

an 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 ...

who played mainly as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People * Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Sm ...

for

Unión Española Club Unión Española S.A.D.P. is a professional football club based in the Independencia neighborhood, commune of Santiago, Chile. They currently participate in the Primera División de Chile. It has a branch of women's football, and compete ...

, O'Higgins and

Audax Italiano Audax Club Sportivo Italiano () is a Chilean football club based in La Florida. Founded in 1910, it plays in the Campeonato Nacional and has spent most of its history in the top tier of Chilean football. Audax has been national champions four ...

during the 1970s. He also earned three caps for the

Chile national team Chile, officially the Republic of Chile, is a country in the western part of South America. It is the southernmost country in the world, and the closest to Antarctica, occupying a long and narrow strip of land between the Andes to the eas ...

. In 1999, he was voted to the O'Higgins ''

Team of the Century In team sport, team of the century and team of the decade are hypothetical best teams over a given time period. For the century team, it can be either 100 years, or for a century (always the 20th). Similarly the team of the decade can be for 10 ...

'' by fans of the club. Nicknamed ''El Turco'' ("The Turk") for his appearance, he died on 6 January 2020 at the age of 67.

Early years

Trujillo grew up playing street football in the

barrio ''Barrio'' () is a Spanish word that means " quarter" or " neighborhood". In the modern Spanish language, it is generally defined as each area of a city, usually delimited by functional (e.g. residential, commercial, industrial, etc.), social, a ...

s of

Estación Central Estación Central ((), Spanish for "central station") is a commune of Chile located in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region. Its namesake is the Estación Central railway station located in the commune. Demographics According to t ...

. He eventually joined the youth ranks of Universidad Católica, spending a short time with them before joining the

academy when he moved to

Conchalí Conchalí () is a commune of Chile located in Santiago Province, Santiago Metropolitan Region. It is a northwestern suburb of Santiago. Demographics According to the 2002 census of the National Statistics Institute, Conchalí spans an area of ...

with his family.

Club career

Trujillo made his professional debut with

in 1970, at the age of 17. After disagreements with head coach Néstor Isella over his maturity that resulted in his benching, he made the move to O'Higgins in 1973, where he made an immediate impact. In his first season with the team, he scored 16 goals, finishing as the league's fifth-leading goalscorer as O'Higgins finished in fourth place. He scored 14 league goals the following year (and 24 across all competitions), cementing himself as one of the country's most talented young forwards. He then returned to Unión Española in

1975 It was also declared the ''International Women's Year'' by the United Nations and the European Architectural Heritage Year by the Council of Europe. Events January * January 1 - Watergate scandal (United States): John N. Mitchell, H. R. ...

, winning the league title that year. They also finished as runner-ups in the

1975 Copa Libertadores The Copa Libertadores 1975 was an association football competition contested between the top clubs of the CONMEBOL federation. Independiente won the competition defeating Unión Española Club Unión Española S.A.D.P. is a professional fo ...

. He scored seven goals in the tournament, including the game-tying goal against

Universitario Club Universitario de Deportes, popularly known as Universitario or simply as La "U", is a Peruvian football club located in Lima. The club was founded in 1924 under the name Federación Universitaria by students of the National University of S ...

in the second round that sent his team to the finals, where they lost to Argentine champs Independiente.

International career

He made his international debut during a 2–0 friendly loss to

Mexico Mexico ( Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guate ...

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, who ...

on 16 August 1972. He made two further appearances for Chile during the 1974 Copa Carlos Dittbor, the name given to the home-and-away series between Chile and

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, t ...

that was played in the 1960s and 1970s.

Honours

Club

;Unión Española *

Chilean Primera División The Chilean Primera División (English: First Division) is the top-tier league of the Chilean football league system. It is organized by the '' ANFP''. The league is known as the Campeonato AFP PlanVital for sponsorship reasons. Format As of the ...

Individual

* O'Higgins

: 1999

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Trujillo, Alejandro 1952 births 2020 deaths Chilean men's footballers Chile men's international footballers Men's association football forwards Men's association football midfielders Unión Española footballers O'Higgins F.C. footballers Audax Italiano footballers Chilean Primera División players Footballers from Santiago