Cristian Benedetto

Career
Cristian worked his way through the Valencia youth system and gained his professional contract in the 21/22 season but was loaned out to 4th division team Linense where he scored 3 in four games. The next year he was in the Valencia B team but did not play a game. They ended up not renewing his contract and Gateshead signed him on a bosman deal for the 23/24 season. He played 6 games and also gained 1 assist. In January he was loaned out to Boreham Wood where he only played 1 game. For the 24/25 season he was loaned out to Crawley Town where he played 12 games, scoring 1 and also assisting 1. The next season he was a key reserve player for Gateshead and even got top scorer in the reserves league with 13 goals. In this time he played 4 games for the first team and impressed Ireland to promote him to the first team for the 26/27 season. This proved to be the correct decision as he ended up helping Gateshead to the League One championship and Leasing.com victory. He ended up winning young player of the season with his 7 goals and 8 assists. He also impressed further in the second division. In only 38 games, he scored and assisted 4. It looked as though, as long as Ireland could keep hold of him, he'll be a very good talent for the team. The 28/29 season saw Cristian get another 44 appearances to his name, he also scored and assisted 3 which in turn helped Gateshead reach the Championship play-offs. The next year went even better for Cristian; he scored 6 goals and assisted 9 which in turn led to the Championship trophy coming to the north east after the 29/30 season. After the promotion it was wondered whether Benedetto was good enough for division 1, but he proved everyone wrong. He ended the season with 7 assists and an impressive 10 goals to his name which then left the team in 6th and gaining entry in the Europa League for the next 31/32 season. This proved to be where Cristian belonged, in European football. The 31/32 season saw the side take home the Europa League against Liverpool in extra time, Benedetto playing the full 120 minutes. Again finishing 6th in the league, although the European cup win, meant they were automatically put into the Champions League for the next season. This spurred the team onto try and perform, not just in the Champions League, but back in England too. Benedetto helped the team reach the semi-finals where they were eventually knocked out by eventual winners Athletico Madrid. But along with this, due to the squad size and the quality of this, they ended up going on to win the league on the last game of the season. Benedetto played an impressive 45 games, scoring 6 and assisting 9. It was announced through the season that club captain, David Glembotzki would be leaving England for FC Porto and the new captain of the champions of England would be Cristian. He would lead the team for success in the Champions League the next year. And this is what he did, after acing the group stage and knockout rounds, they reached the final and managed to defeat David and his new FC Porto side 2-0. It also took the Spanish FA until this season to pick Benedetto to get his first cap. So far he's played 4 games and scored 3. Over the series, Benedetto played 345 games for the club (over 10 seasons), scored 45 and assisted 58 times. He well and truly is a club legend to the side, and continues to do well for the club into the future.