Franco Damián Vázquez

Franco Damián Vázquez is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Spanish club Sevilla and the Argentina national team.

Vázquez began his career with Argentine club Belgrano in 2007, before moving to Italian side Palermo in 2011. After a brief loan spell in Spain with Rayo Vallecano during the 2012–13 season, he made his breakthrough with the Sicilian club, earning a transfer to La Liga side Sevilla in 2016.

Vázquez holds both Argentine and Italian nationality as his mother was born in Italy. Internationally, he played for Italy in two friendly matches in 2015, but later declared his intention to represent his birth nation and debuted for Argentina in 2018.

Vázquez is a quick, talented, and mobile left-footed player, who, despite not being particularly fast, possesses a decent burst of acceleration and good physical strength, as well as excellent dribbling skills, close control, and solid first touch, which enables him to turn past challenges, beat opposing players, and run towards goal during counter-attacks, or retain the ball in tight spaces and hold up the ball for teammates with his back to goal; he also has a penchant for using the nutmeg, which is often a trademark move he utilizes in order to get past his opponents. On top of his technical skills, flair, creativity, and elegant movements on the ball, he is also known for his vision and passing ability, which make him an effective assist provider. 

Indeed, during the 2014–15 Serie A season, he was one of the joint tops assist providers in the league, alongside his teammate Dybala, with ten assists. In addition to his creative abilities, he is also capable of contributing to his team's offense with goals, due to his accurate striking ability from distance. A hard-working and tactically versatile player, he is usually deployed as an attacking midfielder, although he has also been deployed in several other positions: he has been used as a winger, as a deep-lying playmaker in midfield, as a false 9, as a second forward, and even as an offensive-minded central midfielder, known as the mezz'ala role, in Italian. His playing style has drawn comparisons with Javier Pastore, Juan Román Riquelme, Alessandro Del Piero, and Roberto Baggio.