Born on 22nd January 1982, this Newcastle star was brought in Cordoba in Argentina. He started his career in football with Argentinos Juniors youth team and continued with his professional debut in the big field with the Boca Juniors. He is better known as Colocho in the football circuit. His physical approach to the game made him a prominent member of the team and ultimately led it to victory with Apertura and Clausura of the Argentine Premiere in the year 1998 and 1999 respectively.
His skills started developing and his performance soon impressed the AC <Milan scouts who had absorbed him into their club. He joined them in 1999 and stayed with them for a span of 5 years. However during this span of time he was mostly loaned out to San Lorenzo. Once his tenure with the club had expired he moved on to Deportivo Alaves and played about 33 matches for the club making his presence a permanent one. During the year 2002-2003 he was loaned out again to Atletico Madrid and played 27 games with the club. During this entire span of time he mesmerized and impressed a wide range of coaches and owners by playing for a number of teams. He expanded his fan club and made his carrer boost up.
His international career was equally impressive and he played for Argentina under 20, team which made it to the finals and ultimately won the 2001 FIFA Youth World Championship. He also became an Olympic Gold Medalist in the year 2004 along with Carlos Tevez and Javier Mascherano. These achievements went a long way to boost up his career and made him a well known figure in the football arena. In 2006 he was selected to play for Argentina in the World Cup. This was one of the biggest achievements for him and even though he played as a substitute he still managed to give his team a decent stay in the game.
His club career also had a decent growth as he was signed for Deportivo de La Coruña, a Galician football club in the year 2004. He played with dedication and consistency in all the matches for the team during the La Liga Championship in 2007 and became the only player to do so. In August 2008, New Castle was impressed with his performance and decided to sign a five year deal with him. The signing amount was a huge 10.3 million pounds which was astonishing. His debut game for the team was with Manchester United in the 2008-2009 season and he out up a decent performance. His dedication was even seen here as he played 32 out of the 34 league games for New Castle United. He was visited in to the PFA Championship team in 2009-2010 and hence managed to raise his reputation for the people.
He had captained the Magpies on 16th October 2010 and managed to come up with a superb equalizer during injury time against Wigan Athletic.