Lucas Barrios

Lucas Ramón Barrios Cáceres (born 13 November 1984) is a Paraguayan footballer who plays for Paraguayan club Sportivo Trinidense.

Barrios is known for his effectiveness in the target area.

This earned him his nickname La Pantera, which means The Panther.

Even though he was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Barrios's mother is Paraguayan, which made him eligible to receive Paraguayan nationality at birth.

Barrios began playing junior football for Argentine clubs Mitre, Juventud de Liniers, Barracas Central (where he was present from 1999 until February 2002) and Pacífico, before joining Huracán, where he was eventually forced to leave the club due to his small stature and low physical physique.

Barrios then joined the youth teams of Argentinos Juniors after age 15, where he trained for one entire year without playing a youth fixture.

Argentinos Juniors' coaches 'El Bichi' Borghi, Marcelo Barticcioto and 'El Checho' Batista ultimately took Barrios out of the club's youth team and promoted him to the club's first-team, where he debuted, before being loaned to Tigre in 2004.

Barrios rose to prominence as a forward for the Chilean club Cobreloa, where he had a spectacular scoring record.

Before joining Cobreloa, he spent much of his professional career in second division football, either in Chile or Argentina.

This meant he finished top scorer in both halves of the championship, the first to do so since Patricio Galaz in 2004.

He amassed an impressive 37 goals in 38 games which attracted the attention of a number of clubs.

However, after joining Cobreloa, he has demonstrated his innate goal scoring ability, notching 14 goals in the Apertura 2007.

Barrios drew the attention of Chilean club Colo-Colo and Mexican club Necaxa with his excellent performance at Cobreloa.

However, Barrios was finally signed by Mexican club Atlas for $2.5 million, where he played one short season in which he scored a single goal in 14 league appearances.

In 2008, Barrios was named top scorer of the year in the world by the IFFHS with 37 goals.

At the beginning of 2008 Colo-Colo signed Barrios on a six-month loan as a reinforcement for their 2008 Copa Libertadores campaign.

Barrios returned to his pre-Atlas form as he was the leading goal scorer in the Apertura with 19 goals.

In the play-offs Barrios was an integral part of the club's success.

In the second leg of the semi-final Colo-Colo found themselves trailing Ñublense 2–0 on aggregate with only ten minutes remaining, when Barrios scored two goals in less than two minutes to qualify the team for the final.

In the first leg of the final, Barrios added his fifth goal of the play-offs and his nineteenth of the season.

At the end of May 2008, and with the loan agreement due to expire in June 2008, Colo-Colo offered $1.5 million for Barrios which Atlas rejected as it did not meet their $2 million valuation.

Eventually, Colo-Colo offered the $2 million Atlas was asking for Barrios.

However Colo-Colo only purchased eighty percent of the player and Barrios holds the remaining twenty percent of his ownership.

Barrios' salary with Atlas was almost $400,000 per year, but in order to be transferred to Colo-Colo he had to accept a forty percent pay cut.

Barrios maintained his fine form in the 2008 Clausura, scoring 18 goals in 16 matches only.

Lucas Barrios was on the verge of signing a four-year contract with French club Nancy, but Colo-Colo's president Gabriel Ruiz-Tagle, on the afternoon of 12 January 2009, rejected the offer, but stated that further offers were being discussed.

On 29 January 2009, it was revealed that a $7 million offer from Espanyol had been rejected by Colo-Colo due to the way the deal was structured.

On 28 June 2009, rumors from Greece claimed that Lucas Barrios signed a four-year-contract with Panathinaikos for a sum of €5 million.

However it was later announced that even after Colo-Colo accepted the offer, Barrios declined to go, without any reasons being mentioned.

Afterwards, Barrios was linked with Bundesliga teams Borussia Dortmund and fourth placed Hertha BSC.

It was finally agreed that Barrios would go to Borussia Dortmund.

In July 2009, after just one and a half years at Colo-Colo, Barrios officially signed a contract with German club Borussia Dortmund.

The German club paid a sum of €4.2 million.

After having a tough start, Barrios finally broke through and scored five goals in five consecutive Bundesliga matches.

Barrios also added four goals and one assist in three DFB-Pokal appearances.

Since then he added 13 more goals, bringing his tally to 19 for the Bundesliga season, and 23 all together.

Barrios was a key part of Dortmund's push for Champions League football for next season.

He received his Paraguay nationality in March 2010 and made his debut on 25 May of that year.

His goals, especially his hattrick on 24 April 2010 against 1. FC Nürnberg helped his team win 3–2 and to secure a place in the European League the following season.

His first season in Germany ended with a goal on the final day of the season away at Freiburg, the goal meant Barrios finished third in the Bundesliga top scorer of 2010 with 19 goals in 33 games.