Diego López will turn 40 (on November 3) as Espanyol goalkeeper. The Galician goal, who last August signed his renewal for a season with an option to extend his contract for one more year in case of meeting some variables, has already played the necessary matches for that automatic clause to be applied. It was announced by La Grada this Tuesday, a circumstance that the club stressed in its official note on the renewal of one of the captains of the squad.
“Diego López has also rejected any offer that had been introduced to him and has preferred continue at Espanyol for one more season, with an optional one depending on achieving sporting goals“, commented the club the past 17 of August. With 36 games played and all the minutes of LaLiga SmartBank, the performance of the goal (with 23 goals conceded he fights for Zamora in the category) and his physical form (he has not suffered injuries) have validated the renewal.
Since he made his debut at Lugo in Segunda B in the 1999-2000 campaign, the goalkeeper will chain his 23rd season in professional football, a real outrage. Been through clubs like Real Madrid, Villarreal, Seville or Milan before arriving at Espanyol, where he reached the limit of the 2016 summer market and is already on his way to being a club history both in games played and in average goals received. In fact, he already commented in an interview in AS that he would like to retire at Espanyol, which may occur at the end of the 2021-22 campaign.
Right now, with 155 matches played between First and Second, the Galician goalkeeper is the 46th player in the history of the entity with the most participations. And he only has four goalkeepers ahead: Tommy N'Kono (272), Toni Jiménez (254), Carlos Kameni (222) and José Trias (169). The current goalkeeper averages an average of 1.15 goals per game, a figure almost identical to that of Diego López (1.16), lower than that of Kameni (1.3) but more than Toni Jiménez, who has the record with only 0.98 goals conceded per game. Trias, goalkeeper from another era (1039-1953) achieved an average of 2.05.
Diego López already accepted a significant salary cut last season, after being between 2016 and 2020 the highest paid player in the squad after signing a four-season contract from Milan after the insistence of Quique Sánchez Flores. The goal has been indisputable and only had serious problems with injuries in the 2017-18 campaign, in which he shared the goal with Pau López.