| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Luis Gabelo Conejo Jiménez | ||
| Date of birth | (1960-01-01)1 January 1960 (age 65) | ||
| Place of birth | San Ramón, Costa Rica | ||
| Height | 1.88 m (6 ft 2 in) | ||
| Position | Goalkeeper | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1980–1988 | Ramonense | ? | (5) |
| 1989–1990 | Cartaginés | ||
| 1990–1992 | Albacete | 69 | (0) |
| 1993–1994 | Albacete | 12 | (0) |
| 1996 | Herediano | ||
| 1997 | Ramonense | ||
| Total | 263± | (5±) | |
| International career | |||
| 1987–1991 | Costa Rica | 29 | (0) |
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Luis Gabelo Conejo Jiménez (born 1 January 1960) is a Costa Rican former professionalfootballer who played as agoalkeeper.
He played mainly forRamonense andAlbacete, during a 17-year professional career. In 2009, theInternational Federation of Football History & Statistics named him the 34th best goalkeeper of the world for the period 1987–2008, and the seventh inLatin America.[1]
Conejo appeared forCosta Rica at the1990 World Cup.
Born inSan Ramón,Alajuela Province, Conejo made his professional debut forAsociación Deportiva Ramonense, playing his first game in thePrimera División on 27 November 1981 againstC.S. Herediano[2] and managing to score five league goals during his eight-year spell.[3] He left in 1989 to sign forC.S. Cartaginés, and subsequently joined Spanish clubAlbacete Balompié, quickly becoming an idol as theCastile-La Mancha sidereachedLa Liga for the first time ever in 1991;[4][5] he made his debut in the competition on 1 September 1991 in a 2–0 away loss againstCA Osasuna,[6] and finishedthe season with 33 appearances for a final seventh place.
Afterone year as a backup at Albacete, Conejo returned to Costa Rica withC.S. Herediano in 1996, retiring the following year after one season with Ramonense, aged 37. He had retired two times earlier, not playing in the 1992–93 and 1994–95 campaigns,[7] and his final league match occurred on 2 April 1997 againstPuntarenas FC.[2]
Conejo made his debut forCosta Rica in a 1987friendly match withSouth Korea, and earned a total of 29caps.[2] He appeared for his country in tenFIFA World Cup qualification matches,[8] and represented it at the1991 CONCACAF Gold Cup.[9]
Conejo received international recognition during the1990 FIFA World Cup: featuring in three matches and conceding only twice, his heroic saves againstScotland,Brazil andSweden helped the nation reach the second round. He was replaced byHermidio Barrantes in theround-of-16 encounter againstCzechoslovakia because of an injury, and his team was eliminated; he still managed to be selected as one of the two best goalkeepers in the tournament, the other beingArgentina'sSergio Goycochea.[10]
Conejo's final international was a 1991 Gold Cup match againstMexico.[2] Subsequently, he worked with the national team as goalkeepers' coach.[11]
Costa Rica squads | |||||||
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