Rodrigo Meléndez

Rodrigo Melendez
Personal information
Full name Rodrigo David Meléndez Araya
Date of birth (1977-10-03) 3 October 1977
Place of birth Santiago, Chile
Height 1.70 m (5 ft 7 in)
Position Defensive midfielder
Team information
Current team
 Deportes Linares
Youth career
1990–1996 Cobreloa
Senior career*
Years Team Apps (Gls)
1996–2003 Cobreloa 142 (1)
2003–2004 Quilmes 32 (0)
2004–2005 Estudiantes LP 42 (0)
2006–2010 Colo-Colo 132 (2)
2011–2012 Deportes Iquique 41 (0)
2013 San Luis 9 (0)
2013 San Antonio Unido 9 (0)
Total 407 (3)
International career
2001–2007 Chile 26 (1)
Managerial career
2014 San Antonio Unido
2014 Deportes Melipilla
2015–2016 Unión La Calera (assistant)
2016–2017 Cobreloa (caretaker)
2018 Cobreloa
2019–2021 Deportes Colina
2021 Cobreloa
2023 Iberia
2024-2025 Deportes Linares
2026- Deportes Linares
* Club domestic league appearances and goals

Rodrigo David Meléndez Araya (born 3 October 1977) is a Chilean former professional football player and current manager of Deportes Linares.[1] He played as a defensive midfielder in his years active.

During his football career, he has won seven Chilean league titles with Colo-Colo and Cobreloa.

Football career

Meléndez came through the youth academies of Colo-Colo and Magallanes, before joining the senior team of Cobreloa, where he made his professional debut in 1996. With the club, he won the 2003 Torneo Clausura championship.

Nicknamed Kalule, after the Ugandan boxer Ayub Kalule,[2] he moved to Argentina after being named Chilean Footballer of the Year. He first played for Quilmes AC and later for Estudiantes de La Plata.

In 2006, he returned to his boyhood club Colo-Colo, which had recovered from bankruptcy and was enjoying a resurgence. The defensive midfielder, who remained with the club until 2010, won six league titles and reached the final of the 2006 Copa Sudamericana, where Colo-Colo lost to Mexican side Pachuca.

After two seasons with Deportes Iquique and a six-month spell at San Luis de Quillota, he ended his playing career with Chilean club San Antonio Unido, where he became the team's head coach the following season.

International career

Meléndez represented Chile at Copa América in 2004 and 2007.

Managerial career

In June 2023, he signed with Iberia in the Segunda División Profesional de Chile.[3]

Personal life

His son, Javier, is a professional footballer from the Colo-Colo youth ranks who made his professional debut playing for Cobreloa in 2021.[4]

Career statistics

Honours

Player

Cobreloa

Colo-Colo

References

  1. ↑ "¿Qué fue de Rodrigo 'Kalule' Meléndez?". El Gráfico (in Spanish). 12 August 2014. Retrieved 30 June 2015.
  2. ↑ "Rodrigo Meléndez confiesa: ¿por qué le dicen "Kalule"?". CDF (in Spanish). Facebook. 15 April 2020. Retrieved 31 July 2026.
  3. ↑ "¡Nueva aventura para Kalule! Rodrigo Meléndez se hace cargo de Deportes Iberia con la durísima tarea de zafar del descenso". Bolavip Chile (in Spanish). 13 June 2023. Retrieved 13 June 2023.
  4. ↑ Gómez, Bastián (17 September 2021). "Paredes, Tudor y Caputto: los juveniles hijos de viejos cracks del fútbol chileno". www.encancha.cl (in Spanish). Retrieved 21 October 2022.
This page is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.