7 facts you did not know about Alexis Sanchez

#5 His Nickname Was Given To Him By A Chilean Journalist

El Nino Maravilla in action. In the aftermath of his debut for Cobreloa, Sanchez was given the nickname that has stayed with him up until the present day: el Nino Maravilla. The Wonder Kid.

The man who bestowed that sobriquet upon him was local journalist Jaime Cortes, of the newspaper El Mercurio de Calama.

“Sanchez had shown in training sessions that he was an outstanding player, even though he was small and thin,” Cortes recalled in an interview in 2011. “The day that he debuted, he pretty much changed the course of the match. That day, the idea of calling him La Pequena Maravilla came to me... and it became el Nino Maravilla.”