Gabriel Alejandro Paletta (born 15 February, 1986 in Buenos Aires) is an Argentine central defender, who currently plays for Boca Juniors.

[edit] Career

[edit] Banfield

Paletta came through the youth divisions of Club Atlético Banfield and reached the first team in 2005. When Banfield qualified for the knockout stages of the Copa Libertadores, they altered their 25 man squad for the event to include Paletta and immediately threw him into action against the Colombian team Independiente Medellín. Paletta played well and Banfield progressed, but Paletta was to play no further part in the tournament after being called up to the Argentina Under-20 team to participate in the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship.

[edit] Liverpool

Paletta signed for Liverpool at 21 years of age, the club was believed to have paid a fee of ₤2 million. He agreed to sign with the club in February of 2006 and signed his contract for a 4-year deal on July 4, 2006, making Paletta the second Argentine to play for the Merseyside club, after Mauricio Pellegrino. ^[1] He scored his first and what turned out to be only Liverpool goal in the Carling Cup against Reading on 25 October 2006.^[2] On July 9, 2007 it was reported that Paletta would be loaned to Spain's Levante in order to gain some valuable first-team experience, although Rafa Benitez had agreed to loaning the defender, the move was not established ^[3]. Instead, on August 26, 2007 it was officially reported that Liverpool agreed for Paletta to sign with Boca Juniors ^[4].

[edit] Boca Juniors

Paletta returned to Argentina after one year with Liverpool to join Boca Juniors, he played in the 2007 FIFA Club World Cup Final in which Boca Juniors lost 4–2 against AC Milan. Upon his return in early 2008, he scored against arch rivals River Plate in the Superclásico of the 'Torneo de Verano', he also featured in the 2008 Copa Libertadores where Boca Juniors reached the semi-finals before being knocked out by Fluminense. During the Apertura Tournament of 2008, in a 1–0 win against Arsenal de Sarandi on November 9, Paletta was ruled out of play for six months after tearing the cruciate ligament in his right knee, the injury was a vital incident to occur leading up to the final stages of the Apertura as Paletta's team mate Martin Palermo had also suffered the same injury in August^[5]. Paletta returned to the scene in May of 2009 against Velez Sarsfield and unfortunately suffered an ankle sprain after just 17 minutes. In August 2009 he failed to move to Italy due to Palermo failing to agree the price of the player.[1]. Despite expressing his desire of returning to Europe he became a regular in the first team of Boca Juniors through out the Torneo Apertura of 2009.

[edit] International career

In 2005, Paletta was selected for the Argentina U-20 team to participate in the 2005 FIFA World Youth Championship. He started in all seven games of the tournament, playing in the heart of the Argentine defence, alongside Lionel Messi and Sergio Agüero. Argentina went on to win the tournament and Paletta's performances attracted the attention of Liverpool.

[edit] Titles

Season	Club	Title
2005	Argentina Under-20	FIFA U-20 World Cup
2008	Boca Juniors	Recopa Sudamericana
Apertura 2008	Boca Juniors	Primera División Argentina

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• (Spanish) Argentine Primera statistics
• Gabriel Paletta career stats at Soccerbase
• Official LFC profile