José Manuel Romero Urtasun (born 25 February 1977), known as Josetxo, is a Spanish former 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 lea ...

who played as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield player whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Defenders fall into four main categories: centre-backs, full-backs, sweepers ...

. He spent the vast majority of his career with

Osasuna Club Atlético Osasuna (, ''Osasuna Athletic Club''), or simply Osasuna, is a Spanish professional association football, football club based in Pamplona, Navarre. It was founded on 24 October 1920 and plays in La Liga, the top division of Spanish ...

, appearing in 212

La Liga The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Primera División, commonly known as the Primera División or La Liga, and officially known as LaLiga EA Sports for sponsorship reasons, is a professional association football league in Spain and the highest ...

games over ten seasons.Josetxo: «Desde que llegó Aguirre Osasuna no paró de crecer» (Josetxo: "Ever since Aguirre arrived Osasuna did not stop growing")
El Sadar, 3 July 2013 (in Spanish)

Club career

Osasuna

Josetxo was born in

Pamplona Pamplona (; ), historically also known as Pampeluna in English, is the capital city of the Navarre, Chartered Community of Navarre, in Spain. Lying at near above sea level, the city (and the wider Cuenca de Pamplona) is located on the flood pl ...

Navarre Navarre ( ; ; ), officially the Chartered Community of Navarre, is a landlocked foral autonomous community and province in northern Spain, bordering the Basque Autonomous Community, La Rioja, and Aragon in Spain and New Aquitaine in France. ...

. Other than a

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commonly known as Segunda División or La Liga 2, and officially known as LaLiga HyperMotion for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spa ...

season-long loan at

SD Eibar Sociedad Deportiva Eibar (in ) is a Spanish football league teams, Spanish professional football club based in Eibar, Gipuzkoa, in the autonomous Basque Country (autonomous community), Basque Country. Founded on 30 November 1940, the men’s te ...

in 1999–2000, he spent the first 15 years of his career with hometown club

CA Osasuna Club Atlético Osasuna (, ''Osasuna Athletic Club''), or simply Osasuna, is a Spanish professional football club based in Pamplona, Navarre. It was founded on 24 October 1920 and plays in La Liga, the top division of Spanish football. The team's ...

, making his

debut on 1 December 2001 in a 2–1 away defeat against

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

. He had previously appeared with the side in the second tier, as they returned to the top flight precisely as he was serving his loan. In the 2000–01 campaign, after returning to his ''

alma mater Alma mater (; : almae matres) is an allegorical Latin phrase meaning "nourishing mother". It personifies a school that a person has attended or graduated from. The term is related to ''alumnus'', literally meaning 'nursling', which describes a sc ...

'', Josetxo played the last of his three seasons with the reserve side in the

Segunda División B Segunda División B (English: second division B) was the third tier of the Spanish football league system containing 102 teams divided into five groups, until it was replaced by the new structure in 2021. It was administered by the Royal Spanish ...

. He contributed 36 games to a final eighth place, scoring three goals. Josetxo appeared in 29 matches as Osasuna finished fourth in 2005–06, thus

qualifying Qualification may refer to: Processes * Qualifications-Based Selection (QBS), a competitive contract procurement process established by the United States Congress * Process qualification, ensures that manufacturing and production processes can ...

for the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

; in the subsequent run in the

UEFA Cup The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , , "little star", is a Typography, typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a star (heraldry), heraldic star. Computer scientists and Mathematici ...

, he played nine games to help his team to reach the semi-finals. He signed a three-year contract extension in December 2006, going on to be regularly used the following four years (he was also

sent off In sports, an ejection (also known as dismissal, sending-off, disqualification, or early shower) is the removal of a participant from a contest due to a violation of the sport's rules. The exact violations that lead to an ejection vary depending ...

four times), always spent in the top flight.

Later career

On 5 July 2011, the 34-year-old Josetxo left Osasuna and signed a one-year deal with

SD Huesca Sociedad Deportiva Huesca, S.A.D., is a Spanish football club based in Huesca, in the autonomous community of Aragon. Founded in 1910, the club competes in the Segunda División, having played in the Spanish top division for the first time in th ...

in the second division. He retired at the end of the season.¿Qué fue de los subcampeones de Osasuna en la final de hace 18 años en el Calderón? (What happened to the Osasuna runners-up in the final at the Calderón 18 years ago?)

Eurosport Eurosport is a group of pay television networks in Europe and parts of Asia, owned and operated by Warner Bros. Discovery through its WBD Sports unit, it operates two main channels—Eurosport 1 and Eurosport 2—across most of its territorie ...

, 20 March 2025 (in Spanish)

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Josetxo 1977 births Living people 20th-century Spanish sportsmen Spanish men's footballers Footballers from Pamplona Men's association football central defenders La Liga players Segunda División players Segunda División B players CA Osasuna B players CA Osasuna players SD Eibar footballers SD Huesca footballers Spain men's youth international footballers