América legend Zague explains why he never made a European switch | OneFootball

Luis Roberto Alves, known better as ‘Zague’, will always be remembered as one of the most legendary América players of all-time.

In addition to winning an incredible nine trophies with the azulcremas, Zague is the club’s all-time leading scorer with 192 goals (despite never winning a scoring title).

Due to his Brazilian father (who himself was a top América forward from 1961-1969), Alves started his career in the Corinthians youth system before spending his entire professional career in Mexico.

Despite being El Tri’s sixth-leading scorer of all-time and repeatedly impressing in Mexico’s top-flight, Zague never made a high-profile move to Europe – something that he blames the América board for.

“I feel extremely fulfilled with my career. Maybe I would have liked to try those feelings of European football.

“América always made me untransferable. They made me an institutional player who was never going to leave.

“As a result of that, I understood that my destiny was to always be here.”

Zague featured an incredible 468 times for América, in addition to 79 matches with Atlante and his final 120 games with Necaxa.