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OMAR BRAVO TORDECILLAS
Date of Birth: 4 March 1980
City of Birth: Los Mochis, Sinaloa
Nationality: Mexico (international)
Contract: 2008 - 2011
Transfer: Free Transfer (2008, from Chivas Guadalajara)
Previous Clubs: Chivas Guadalajara (2001-2008)
Buy-out Clause: ?
Height: 169 cm
Weight: 59 kg
Position: Attacker
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Striker Omar Bravo became the second Mexican player of Deportivo after Andrés Guardado and is supposed to add fire power to Lotina’s team for the next years. He has a huge reputation in Mexico (he’s Guadalajara’s second-best all-time top scorer) and now will fulfil his dream to play in Spain. Has the time arrived that the Samba-football of 1990’s Deportivo is replaced by Mexican flavour in 2008?
Omar Bravo was born in 1980’s Los Mochis, a city now having 230,000 inhabitants in the northern part of the Sinaloa state. At the age of twelve, when Deportivo started their rise to the top in Spain, he started to play football and was quickly included in the Sinaloa state team. He also was an amateur boxer, something disliked by his parents, and loved to play baseball (he’s a fan of the New York Yankees). He was close to joining Club Santos Laguna from Torreón at the age of fourteen, but in the end (aged seventeen) signed a contract at popular club Chivas de Guadalajara to play in their youth teams. Guadalajara is Mexico’s biggest club concerning league titles won (eleven) and the matches between América and Guadalajara are called the clásicos.
 Mexico’s Primera División is divided in two phases, the Apertura (from August-December, formerly called Torneo Invierno) in the Mexican winter and the Clausura (from January-May, formerly called Torneo Verano) in the Mexican summer. Coach José Luis Real gave 20-years old Omar Bravo his professional debut in Mexico’s highest division during the Torneo Verano 2001 on February 17 against Tigres de Monterey. He added two more matches that season and between the Torneo Invierno 2001 & Torneo Verano 2002 he had become a regular player in their team with thirty-three appearances, but just two goals. He had his breakthrough during the Apertura 2002 with six goals in nineteen matches and the media proclaimed him to be the best ‘rookie’ of the tournament.
He also appeared to be a good student with good notes and he studied physical education and sports, something which his parents (who both are teachers) encouraged. But his career made it too difficult for him to finish his studies. It didn’t take long before fast and skilful Omar Bravo exploded in Mexico. During the Clausura 2003 he reached his best mark ever with twelve goals in twenty-two appearances, in the Apertura 2003 he added another five goals in fifteen appearances and during the Clausura 2004, which Guadalajara won, he scored nine goals in twenty-five matches. Aged twenty-three he scored his first goal for the national team of Mexico against Jamaica during the Gold Cup. He added goals against Chile and Ecuador in 2004. After it, he joined the Mexican team for the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens. He did fine by scoring two goals in the tournament, but it wasn’t enough for Mexico to survive. After this tournament he scored six goals in seventeen matches for Guadalajara which brought his total for the year 2004 to fifteen goals. In 2005 he scored another fifteen goals divided between the Clausura 2005 and Apertura 2005. In 2006 he reached the number of seventeen goals: six in the Clausura 2006 and eleven in the Apertura 2006 which was won by Guadalajara. During those years he also played in the Copa Libertadores with Guadalajara. An injury sidelined him from the 2005 FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany, but he was included in Mexico’s squad playing the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany.
 It was the 2006 FIFA World Cup which put his name in the news papers as he scored Mexico’s first two goals in the opening match of Group D against Iran and was declared Man of the Match. Omar Bravo also played a full match against Angola (0-0) and Portugal (1-2, he missed a penalty) and the team qualified for the next round. Mexico lost 1-2 in extra-time against Scaloni’s Argentina, but Omar Bravo didn’t play. Mexican coach Ricardo La Volpe used striker Jared Borgetti (Bolton Wanderers, Mexico’s all-time top scorer) and José Fonseca of Cruz Azul (he would move to Benfica after the tournament) with Atlas player Andrés Guardado playing close to them. Of course, his goals caused that 26-years old Omar Bravo was attracting attention. One of these interested clubs was Racing de Santander who tried to sign him in 2006, 2007 and 2008. As no deal was established, in 2007 he simply continued with what he did best: scoring goals. He won his only Mexican top scorer title during the Clausura 2007 when he scored eleven times in twenty-one matches. He was the first Mexican to achieve this since 2001 and the first player of Guadalajara to do this since 1961. He added another eight in nineteen matches during the Apertura 2007 and his final amount in Mexico would be ten goals in nineteen matches during the Clausura 2008.
Omar Bravo winning the Clausura 2007 top scorer title also had called the attention of Deportivo. The team of Caparrós, who would be replaced by Lotina, had awful goal scoring problems as regular players like Arizmendi, Riki and Cristián only scored nine Liga goals combined. It was May 2007 when Guadalajara president Jorge Vergara revealed that the Galicians had asked about Omar Bravo. He added that other clubs were interested also but no official offers were made. Later that month Mexican rivals Monterrey made an €2.6 million offer for him, but Jorge Vergara was aiming to sell him to an European club and VfB Stuttgart (who already had Pardo and Osorio) and Deportivo were named. He wasn’t too happy with Omar Bravo at that moment. The striker had won the Clausura 2007 top scorer title but the president was furious that he and other striker 'Bofo' Bautista couldn’t score a single goal against arch-rivals América (0-0 and 0-1) and Guadalajara were eliminated from the tournament. If Jorge Vergara had accepted the offer of Monterrey it would have been the biggest transfer in Guadalajara’s history. But the problem was that Jorge Vergara had given his word to the fans: Omar Bravo would only leave the squad for a foreign club. Guadalajara now had a problem, because no offer satisfied the wishes of the club (it seemed they asked €3,5 million) and Omar Bravo’s contract was going to expire in 2008. In August 2007 there was renewed speculation about supposed interest of Deportivo, but strikers like Soldado and Hélder Postiga were also mentioned. In the end none of them arrived which gave a chance to striker Xisco. One of the problems was that Omar Bravo didn’t have an EU-passport which would force the last moment departure of Sebastián Taborda, something which Lotina didn’t want. Jorge Vergara claimed that he already had rejected offers from Villarreal, Betis Sevilla and Racing de Santander and Omar Bravo was going to stay for another year in Mexico. He already seemed to have been scrapped of Deportivo’s wish list and replaced by Atlético striker Mista.
 However, the goal scoring problems of Deportivo continued in the first months of the 2007/2008 season. The Mexican press related Omar Bravo to Deportivo, but not much of it seemed true. There was an interest, but that had been there for a while and no talks between the clubs were arranged. Meanwhile, the striker himself was asked about a possible move to Deportivo. He said: “I talked with Andrés (Guardado) about it and he confirmed the interest. It would be great to play alongside him, but first things need to become materialized. But no matter the interest of Deportivo, I still haven’t been able to reach an agreement with Guadalajara over a contract renewal”. Finally, Lotina also was asked about the Mexican striker: “Omar Bravo is a good player. But the problem here is the foreign spots. Besides, his name also appears in France, England and Italy”. That was it for those months.
Omar Bravo never reached an agreement with Guadalajara about a contract and now, with the financial compensation asked by Guadalajara being removed, the option to join Deportivo became easier. The name of Blackburn Rovers was related to him, and Lotina admitted that within Deportivo there had been talks about him. Before the final match of the season against Villarreal, Lotina joked about an article in La Opinón A Coruña which claimed that the Mexican striker was very close to signing at Deportivo. Lotina said: “What a pleasant surprise, I didn’t know about that!” On a more serious note he added that “he’s a very interesting player who could contribute something”. At the end of May it was rumoured that intense negotiations between Omar Bravo’s agent and Lendoiro had been going on. A confirmation of his departure from Guadalajara was that he already had said goodbye to his colleagues as confirmed by defender Jonny Magallón. It was speculated that Deportivo had offered a signing fee of around €1,5 million and the same amount as annual salary. Still, Omar Bravo denied that a deal had been reached neither with Deportivo nor Racing de Santander. He seemed to be waiting for talks with Guadalajara’s officials, out of respect but also because his contract was only expiring on July 31. And he kept the door open for a contract renewal: “I always have given priority to Guadalajara and if I have the chance I will stay here”.
 However, the next day (22 May 2008) Depor Sport claimed that the deal was done and Deportivo’s spokesperson Rafael Carpacho confirmed it. It seemed that Omar Bravo had spoken to the Guadalajara officials and later called Deportivo to accept their offer. A decisive aspect for Omar Bravo seems to have been the presence of Guardado in the squad of Deportivo. The Galician now had acquired the second-best all-time top scorer of Guadalajara (101 goals in 258 matches). Lotina called Omar Bravo “a smart player who knows what to do in the area and he can score goals. He’s a type like Raúl Tamudo and lethal in the final meters. He has a good shot and always gives defenders a lot of work. I think that he can contribute a lot with his depth on the pitch and hopefully with goals. He’s a type that needs to play in the area”. Later it was known that Omar Bravo had rejected a final offer of Guadalajara (€8 million in four years) which was better than the one of Deportivo. He said: “I’m making a sacrifice in the economic aspect, but I want to fulfil my dream to play in Europe”. Asked about his position on the pitch, he said that “I’m not a typical central striker and am more used to perform with another striker in front of me”. He admitted that Guardado’s presence at Deportivo had made the choice easier and also the language aspect”. Omar Bravo, nicknamed El Mochiteco or Omarcito, called himself a “shy and quite a reserved person” and confirmed that none of his family members (he isn’t married) would join him in Spain. There was some poking of Chivas who claimed that Omar Bravo’s contract had expired on 31 May, and not on July 31, so they didn’t need to pay two months of salary. Omar Bravo and his agent wanted a confirmation of that, so that in no way Chivas could claim work refusal of the striker. In the end the matter was solved and Omar Bravo was cleared to travel to Europe within a few weeks. Not that he was going to sit back and relax, as he was allowed to use Guadalajara‘s facilities to stay in shape”.
The big questions which remain are: will Omar Bravo adapt to Spanish football and on what position will Lotina use him? It seems that Lotina wants to have him close to the goal while Omar Bravo himself sees himself as a second striker. It’s a similar case like Riki and Mista, which would leave Xisco without too much competition upfront. It’s more likely that Omar Bravo will compete with Xisco for the striking position but that he also will have possibilities to play if two strikers are needed.
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