Sebastián Battaglia

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Sebastián Alejandro Battaglia (b.November 8, 1980 in Santa Fe) is an Argentine football midfielder that currently plays with Argentine Boca Juniors.

Even though he was born in the Santa Fe Province, Sebastián started playing with the Boca Juniors' reserve team. He made his professional debut on May 31, 1998, and quickly became an important player for Boca Juniors' ball recuperation. He played 5 years with the club when, in the middle of the 2003/2004 seaons, Villarreal CF of Spain bought 50% of his pass for 2.8 million euros and acquired his services.Villarreal was deemed to be a good fit since there where already other former Boca Juniors players such as Martín Palermo, Juan Román Riquelme, Diego Cagna, Rodolfo Arruabarrena and Fabricio Coloccini (some of them still playing there).

With Villarreal Battaglia played only a season and a half, without showing the proficiency displayed while in Argentina and with adaptation problems stemming from all his family being uprooted. After an injury that kept him from playing for almost 6 months, he decided to return with his family to Argentina. On July 2005, after some difficult negotiations between Boca Juniors and Villarreal he got his wish.

With Boca Juniors he improved his game not only reaching his former level but perhaps surpassing it, as he became the captain of Boca Juniors, and was finally called for the first time to the Argentina, to participate of the World Cup Qualifiers match against Peru on October 8, 2005. He was also a starter in the friendly match against Qatar in November of the same year.