Jairo 'El Tigre' Castillo, new coach of strikers in Llaneros

He played in 13 clubs from different countries, with several he was on more than one occasion. He passed through Argentina, Uruguay, Mexico, Spain and Cyprus. He wore the shirts of teams such as America de Cali, Millonarios, Vélez Sársfield, Independiente de Avellaneda, Real Valladolid and Defensor Sporting, among others. He has more than 400 games in his career and scored around 145 goals. He was the champion of the Copa America with the Colombia National Team and won five titles at the club level. In 2008, he scored three goals for Boca Juniors in one of Godoy Cruz's most important victories in its history, facing the Xeneizes. She scored a goal as a Chilean in the South American Qualifiers for the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup. In 2014 he sued Falcao García for accepting his nickname “El Tigre” and in 2015 he was imprisoned for drunk driving, a few years earlier he had hit two people on a motorcycle with his van. He had a long and controversial career. He ended up retiring in 2014, playing for Boyaca Chico, at the age of 37.

Today he is 44 years old and has decided to return to Colombian professional football. After his retirement, and after having held the same position in Boyacá Chicó, Jairo 'El Tigre' Castillo will be the new forward coach of Club Llaneros de Villavicencio, in the BetPlay Tournament, the second division of the FPC. With his experience and knowledge, the former footballer will seek to help the team led by Jersson González, another former footballer, and thus increase its effectiveness against opposing goals. Today, they are outside the promotion zone and are the third team in the tournament with the fewest goals scored.

Through a statement, the club made Castillo's arrival official and by their hand they will seek to end the bad fight they are coming in. They currently occupy the eleventh place in the BetPlay Tournament standings and total 13 points. They won three games, tied four and lost four. They hope that with the arrival of 'El Tigre' things will start to work and this is how they will try to prove it on the next date, when they face Atlético F.C. at the Pascual Guerrero Stadium, in the city of Cali. For that match, which will start at 3:00 p.m. on Friday, April 15, the Villavicencio team could form with the same 11 that played against Real Santander, a match that ended up tied to 2 goals, with scores from Bryan Urueña and Mario Alexander Álvarez.

After the hiring of Jersson González became official at the beginning of April, several movements have been made by the team at the structure level. After the departure of Walter Aristizábal, the entire coaching staff was reassembled and the club's commitment, on this occasion, is to seek the contribution of benchmarks from clubs with a long history in the first division. One of them is the America of Cali. Thus, Castillo is added as the first of the names that are wanted for this restructuring process.

It should be recalled that 'El Tigre' started his career in America in Cali, in 1994. He was loaned to Atlético Bucaramanga in 1995 and with the leopards he won the Second Division championship, being one of the most outstanding players of that season. He returned to America a year later, and there he got several of his best performances. He managed to be the top scorer of the league, in the 1996-1997 season and his club won the tournament that year. With the Red Devils, he won the Merconorte Cup title in 1999, the team's first international achievement. At that moment he made the leap to Argentina and began his journey through football in that country.

Now, with Llaneros, he hopes to demonstrate everything he learned over the years. We'll have to see it.

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