Becchio: Luciano Hector (Luciano)

2008-2013 (Player Details)

Striker

Born: Cordoba Argentina: 28-12-83

Debut v Scunthorpe United (a) (Substitute): 09-08-2008

6'1 1/2" 13st 5lb (2008)

An Argentinian player of Italian descent, he started his football career with Boca Juniors in Buenos Aires, in the 2002-03 campaign, but never played for the first team. He went to Spain and there he joined the La Liga side, RCD Mallorca. He scored five goals in twenty-nine appearances over a two year stay, which included a loan spell with Ciudad de Murcia in the Spanish Segunda Division, where his sixteen appearances produced three goals. In the 2005-06 season his travels took him to Barcelona to play for Tarrassa FC in the Spanish Segunda B Division, where he played twenty-four games and scored twice. The following season he moved across town and joined Barcelona FC. He did take the field ten times for the first team but was not on long enough to open his goalscoring account. He was also loaned to Segunda B Division team Merida UD where he was able to get good playing time and scored five times in twelve appearances. Merida UD signed him on a permanent basis and in the 2007-08 campaign he repaid their faith in him by scoring twenty-two times in thirty-eight appearances. A player of considerable talent, known simply as Luciano in Spain, he was renowned as a lower-league talisman, scoring twenty-eight goals in fifty appearances in all competitions, with twenty-two of his goals scored in the League, for Merida UD during the 2007–08 season. Luciano finished the season as Spain's Segunda B division top scorer, with six goals coming in the last four games, including a hat-trick on the final day against Baza. Having proved he could be a prolific scorer in the Spanish lower Leagues, he turned down a new deal from Merida to seek a move elsewhere. He came to the attention of Leeds who took him on their pre-season tour of Ireland and used it as a trial for his ability. After first meeting up with the squad in Galway, where he arrived armed only with a pair of boots, he went on to establish himself as a real striking threat. He made his Leeds United debut against Shelbourne in July 2008 and also impressed against Barnet three days later. Manager Gary McAllister was suitably impressed and signed him on 31st July 2008 on a three-year deal. After coming on for nine minutes at Scunthorpe in the first match of the season, he made his first start for Leeds in their 5–2 win over Chester City in the First Round of the Carling Cup. He was given his first League start against Yeovil Town in a 1–1 draw, in which it took him just twenty-five seconds to score his first professional Leeds United goal. Becchio scored his second goal for the club in his first start at Elland Road in a 4–0 victory over Crystal Palace in the Football League Cup. The following week, hecame off the bench to head home his third Leeds goal in the 2–1 win over local rivals Bradford City in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy. Luciano's nick-name is the 'battering-ram' and his principal skills are his power, pace, aerial ability and his clinical finishing with either foot. Contrary to initial reports that Luciano signed on a free transfer, Leeds United paid an undisclosed sum for the Argentine. He soon became a favourite with the fans for his renowned work rate and passionate displays. His boundless energy and dogged persistence soon made him a nuisance to opposition defenders and he quickly formed a formidable strike partnership with Jermaine Beckford. Against all the odds Becchio missed just one game in all competitions, and that was because of a suspension. For a player whose style is based on taking everything that is thrown at him his recuperative powers are incredible, coupled with the fact that his Manager would have liked to have rested him, and had bought or loaned players with that in mind, he refused to concede his place in the team to anyone. After finding the net nineteen times in his first season, he carried on in similar vein in his second season netting another seventeen, when his goalscoring partnership with Jermaine Beckford was a main reason for the club's promotion. He ended the season with a flourish, scoring five goals in four games as United mounted the final push for promotion. He was soon off the mark in the Championship, scoring United's first goal of the season in a 1-2 home defeat by Derby County. He set a cracking pace and after a quick fire hat-trick on 13th November 2010 in a 3-1 win over Bristol City he took his season's tally to nine and was rewarded by being named PFA Championship player of the month for November. On 18th December 2010 he signed a two and a half year contract with the club and by the end of the month he had scored twelve goals. Once again he had proved durable and consistent, scoring nineteen in the League and one in the League Cup for a total of twenty, while he made thirty-four starts and seven games from the bench in the League and one start in the F.A. Cup and two more in the League Cup for a total of forty-four games. It would have been more, but after registering his twentieth goal of the season in a 2-2 draw with Watford at Elland Road on 16th April 2011, he was injured in the same game and took no further part in the four remaining games of the season. In the close-season it was rumoured that Swansea City had made a £3 million bid for his services. He spent time with specialists trying to clear up his hamstring injury, but after returning to light training, the injury returned and in July he had to have surgery. It seemed it would be several months before he could play his first game of the 2011/12 season. It was not until Leeds faced Crystal Palace at Elland Road on 10th September 2011 that Becchio was able to return to the squad. The form of top scorer Ross McCormack and loanee Andy Keogh was such that he was confined to the role of substitute for a dozen League games but after the first two of those games he was in the starting eleven for the League Cup game with Manchester United and in his first game as a fifty-eighth minute substitute he had taken barely twelve minutes to open his season's goalscoring account with the fiftieth League goal of his career. He reurned to the starting eleven on 26th November 2011 for the home clash with Barnsley and was ever-present for the rest of the season, even though four of those games were from the bench. There was little doubt that the 2011-12 season was the Argentinian's least fruitful with the club, as he managed just eleven League goals, but his involvement was curtailed by his recovery from his hamstring problems of the previous season. Neil Warnock is on record as saying that Becchio would return as a stronger player for the 2012-13 season and with a full pre-season training in prospect he would recapture his previous output. Becchio did return with a vengeance and scored goals at will in the new season. elped by several fom the penalty spot he became United's tenth greatet scorer of League goals when he got his seventy-fifth and overtook Arthur Hydes with a penalty that got United the points in a 1-0 home win over Bolton Wanderers on New Year's Day 2013. He had amassed nineteen goals for the season when he put in a transfer request on 24th January 2013 after he could not negotiate a new contract with the club. On 30th January 2013, Becchio agreed to join Norwich City in exchange for Steve Morison and £200,000 on a three-and-a-half-year contract. While at Leeds he scored seventy-five League goals from one hundred and fifty-six starts and thirty-four games from the bench. He also scored three times in the F.A. Cup from eight starts and three games as a substitutue, six goals in ten starts and four games from the bench, one goal in one start and three substitute appearances in the Johnstone's Paint Trophy and one goal in two starts in the play-offs. He made his Norwich debut as an eighty-seventh minute substitute for Wes Hoolahan in the 0-0 away draw with Queens Park Rangers on 2nd February 2013 making his starting debut in the 0-0 home draw with Fulham a week later. He started the next game on 23rd February at Home to Everton but after that he was used as a substitute in the final few minutes and finished the season with no goals to his credit from two starts and six games from the bench.