Javier Balboa

Real Madrid

Born in Madrid, Balboa arrived at Real Madrid Castilla in the summer of 2005. He eventually settled down, although he missed a part of their season due to first team duty; he still finished his first year with 32 games and one goal, in Segunda División. After having toured with the Real Madrid first team in its Austrian tour during the 2006–07 pre-season, Balboa signed a one-year loan deal with Racing de Santander in La Liga in order to gain first team experience, after being told he was not going to be part of the former's plans by manager Fabio Capello. He was an integral part of the Cantabrian side for the season's duration, scoring in a 2–1 win at RCD Mallorca in the 88th minute, on 16 December 2006. Balboa was praised by Capello's replacement, Bernd Schuster, upon his return from loan, and his contract was extended until 2011. During the 2007 pre-season he was played as a right and left winger, and did well in several games, scoring against Lokomotiv Moscow. Balboa came on in the second half of the UEFA Champions League home match against Olympiacos on 24 October 2007 and, during injury time, scored his first goal in the competition and for Real after being set up by Robinho, in a 4–2 group stage home win. On 19 December, he scored his first goal in the Copa del Rey, in a 1–1 draw against Alicante in the fourth round. The previous month, he had come to blows with teammate Pepe during a training session; he was not called up for Real Madrid's next…

Balboa made his debut with Equatorial Guinea on 2 June 2007, in a 0–2 loss to Rwanda for the 2008 Africa Cup of Nations qualifying stage. Also, he appeared in B games against the Region of Murcia and Extremadura in 2007, against Brittany on 2 June 2011 and against French side Issy-les-Moulineaux. On 21 January 2012, Balboa scored the inaugural goal in the 2012 Africa Cup of Nations, the game's only as the co-hosts defeated Libya. In the 2015 edition of the tournament, also hosted by his country, he won a penalty after being fouled by Gabon's Lloyd Palun, and converted it to open a 2–0 win which put Equatorial Guinea into the quarter-finals. In the last-eight encounter, against Tunisia, he converted a late penalty to tie the game at 1–1 and eventually take it to extra time, where he scored a free kick to take his country to its first ever semi-final. Balboa missed the first penalty in the shootout of the third-place playoff lost to the DR Congo, but with three goals was the tournament's joint top scorer alongside four other players.

Club

As of 12 May 2016

International

As of 31 January 2015 Scores and results list Equatorial Guinea's goal tally first, score column indicates score after each Balboa goal.

Balboa came from a notable Equatorial Guinean family. His paternal great-grandfather, Abilio Balboa Arkins, of Cuban and Sierra Leone Creole descent, was mayor of Santa Isabel (renamed Malabo) during the 1960s. Balboa Arkins' sons were also footballers: Norberto (Javier's paternal grandfather), Armando – both were killed after participating in a failed coup d'état against Francisco Macías Nguema – and Abilio Jr., the most prominent of the three who played with his national team. Turn, a daughter of Armando, formed a family in Spain with the son of Domènec Balmanya, and they had a son, Israel Balmanya, who was a professional basketball player. Balboa had another cousin Richard Nguema, a basketball player who played with, amongst others, Real Madrid and the Equatorial Guinea national team.