Borja Criado

Borja Eduardo Criado Malagarriga (born 16 April 1982) is a Spanish retired footballer who played as a forward.

This article uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is Criado and the second or maternal family name is Malagarriga.
Borja Criado
Personal information
Full name Borja Eduardo Criado Malagarriga
Date of birth (1982-04-16) 16 April 1982
Place of birth Barcelona, Spain
Height 1.75 m (5 ft 9 in)
Playing position(s) Forward
Youth career
Europa
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
2000–2001 Europa
2001–2004 Valencia B 95 (12)
2002–2003 Valencia 3 (0)
2004–2006 Espanyol B 21 (1)
2006–2007 Ciudad Murcia 15 (0)
2007–2008 Granada 74 13 (1)
Total 147 (14)
* Senior club appearances and goals counted for the domestic league only

Club career

Criado was born in Barcelona, Catalonia. After signing in 2001 with Valencia CF from CE Europa in his native city, he spent the vast majority of his three-year spell with the former's reserves, appearing three times in La Liga for the first team precisely in the season where they failed to win the national championship during his stay; Rafael Benítez was in charge in his league debut on 1 December 2002, a 0–0 away draw against Deportivo Alavés (three minutes played).[1][2]

In 2004, Criado joined another reserve team and also in the third division, RCD Espanyol B, suffering relegation in his first season. Subsequently, he moved to the second level with Ciudad de Murcia, appearing rarely (15 matches out of 42, no goals) in a near promotion to the top flight.

Criado was one of the players that remained with the club after it was relocated to Granada and renamed Granada 74 CF. In early January 2008, although initially acquitted by the Royal Spanish Football Federation's Competition Committee and Appeal Committee, he received a two-year ban for having tested positive for Finasteride in the previous year, whilst a Ciudad Murcia player. Since 2001, the player had been fighting against baldness with a product which contained the substance, interrupted the treatment for two years upon improving on his condition, then resumed it in 2005, the year when Finasteride was banned by the World Anti-Doping Agency[3] due to the fact it could be used to mask other drugs, as steroids.[4]

Upon appeal, Criado's sentence was reduced to nine months[5] then three, but he eventually chose to retire after losing all motivation, aged just 26.[6]

References
  1. Alavés y Valencia pierden la brújula (Alavés and Valencia lose their ways); El Mundo, 1 December 2002 (in Spanish)
  2. "El Valencia gana a domicilio en el Sánchez Pizjuan" [Valencia win at the Sánchez Pizjuan] (in Spanish). El Mundo. 21 June 2003. Retrieved 18 September 2015.
  3. Dos años de sanción para Borja Criado... ¡por calvo! (Two year-ban for Borja Criado... for being bald!); Marca, 17 January 2008 (in Spanish)
  4. Spanish footballer banned for hair-loss drug Archived 19 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine; Stop Hair Loss Now, January 2008
  5. Reducen de 2 años a 9 meses la sanción de Borja Criado por dopaje (Borja Criado's doping sanction reduced from 2 years to 9 months); Marca, 25 April 2008 (in Spanish)
  6. Borja Criado deja el fútbol por una injusta sanción: "No vuelvo porque he perdido la ilusión" (Borja Criado quits football due to unfair punishment: "I won't return because i have lost the hunger); El Confidencial, 16 October 2008 (in Spanish)
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