Felipe Pardo

Felipe Pardo Castro is a Colombian footballer who was born on August 17th 1990 in Quibdo, Colombia. He plays as a winger for Olympiacos and the Colombia National Football Team. Pardo is known by the nickname Pipe, which is short for Felipe.

Background

Pardo started his youth career with Atletico Huila before moving to Deportivo Cali for the second half of the 2008–2009 season. He scored his first goal in his youth career with Deportivo Cali against Independiente Medellin in a 3–1 win for Copa Mustang 2009.

Felipe Prado started his senior career with Independiente Medellin in 2009 until 2013 when Pardo joined Braga for an approximated €600,000 transfer fee signing a four-year contract.

On 17th July 2015, after two years of exceptional football in Portuguese Primeira Liga, he signed for Olympiacos for a fee of €4.5 million.

On 11th January 2017, Pardo joined Nantes on loan for the second half of the season. The Argentinian club was keenly interested in the Colombian winger, but Olympiakos responded negatively to Independiente's offer of €2.6 million.

Debut

Felipe's impressive performances for his club, Olympiacos, led to his maiden call up to the Colombian national team for the qualifying games for the 2018 FIFA World Cup qualification. On 14th November 2017, he opened the score in a 4-0 away friendly game against China.

He also represented Columbian under-17 team where he scored a goal in 4 appearances.

Club Career

Pardo spent most time of his club career with Independiente in which he scored 11 goals in 161 appearances. Felipe completed his first season, with 5 assists and 9 goals in 41 appearances in the premier league, establishing himself as a dependable option on the right flank of the attack for Braga. He finished the 2014-15 season, scoring 10 goals and making 9 assists.

Various clubs made an attempt to sign Pardo, but the opportunity to play in the Champions League and Olympiacos’ offer brought him at Karaiskaki Stadium.

Pardo made his debut on 16th September 2015, in Champions League playing in a 3–0 home defeat against Bayern Munich and just after 15 days of his debut, he contributed against Arsenal for the Champions League scoring the opener and assisting Alfreðto seal the win.

On the last day of the summer transfer window, Argentinian club Independiente came with a new proposal for Felipe Pardo, but Olympiacos responded negatively and in the summer of 2017 Pardo returned to Olympiacos.

Rise to Glory

His journey with Olympiacos proved to be turning point of his career as he got a national call-up in the Colombian National team due to his impressive performances.

Low Points

In 2015-16 season, Pardo had to sit on the bench for sometime due to multiple injuries which included calf problems and ligament injury. However, he came back strongly after the injury and performed well.

Records

Pardo became only the fourth player in the history of Champions League who scored twice at the same match, coming from the bench.

He was part of Olympiacos team when they won the Superleague Greece in 2015-16 season.