Nicolas Otamendi

Nicolás Hernán Gonzalo Otamendi is an Argentine professional footballer who plays as a centre-back for Premier League club Manchester City and the Argentina national team.

Argentine international Nicolas Otamendi joined City from Valencia in the 2016 summer transfer window.

A physically imposing centre-half, the 31-year-old had already proven himself in Portugal and Spain before arriving in Manchester, where he was instrumental in our 2017/18 title win.

Born in the Buenos Aires neighborhood of El Talar, the young Nicolas shared his time between football and boxing to build his strength and was recruited by Velez Sarsfield.

He made his debut aged 20 and within 11 games he was called up to the Argentine national team by Diego Maradona and made his debut in a 3-0 win over Panama in May 2008.

He became a fixture in Velez’s first-team and was voted into El Pais' South American Team of the Year for 2009, with the paper describing him as "one of the revelations of the year".

After an impressive 2010 World Cup campaign, in which he played three games, he was snapped up by Porto in August of that year.

In his first season, he won the Portuguese league, domestic cup, and the Europa League. They retained the league in 2011-12 and made it a hat-trick of league titles the following season.

Otamendi was a runaway success and secured a move to Valencia in February 2014, who immediately loaned him to Atletico Mineiro in Brazil.

He returned to help Los Che qualify for the Champions League for the first time in four years. He was the only Valencia player named in the La Liga Team of the Year for the 2014-15 season, before making his move to City.

Making his debut from the bench against Juventus, Nico was soon featuring regularly in the starting line-up and won the Carabao Cup against Liverpool in 2016.

He’s gone on to become an integral member of the squad, particularly in 2017/18, when he shone as City won the Premier League and Carabao Cup and he was voted in the 2018 PFA Team of the Year.

Nico added a third Carabao Cup winners’ medal to his collection in 2019 and won another Premier League title and the FA Cup in 2019.

With Argentina, he has twice been a runner-up in the Copa America and played in all four games at the 2018 World Cup.