Mauricio Illesca

Mauricio Leonel Illesca Carreño (born 5 January 1972) is a Chilean former professional footballer who played as a striker for clubs in Chile and abroad.

Club career
Born in Concepción, Chile, as a child, Illesca was with Escuela Barrabases from Maestranza San Eugenio, Estación Central, Santiago. Then he joined Universidad de Chile youth system at the age of 12 and made his professional debut in a 1990 Copa Chile match versus Club Deportivo Soinca Bata, scoring a goal in the 2–1 win. In 1992, he and his fellow Rodrigo Goldberg were loaned to Santiago Wanderers in the Chilean Segunda División. He is well remembered by the club fans due to the fact that he became the team goalscorer with 15 goals. In Chile, he also played for Deportes La Serena, O'Higgins, Colo-Colo, Audax Italiano, Deportes Concepción and Coquimbo Unido.

After a good season with Audax Italiano, in 1997 he had a brief step with Spanish club UD Las Palmas, making five appearances.

His last club was Independiente Santa Fe in Colombia, playing the last match in December 2000 versus América de Cali, becoming the four Chilean to play for the club after Carlos Molina, Juan Ramón Garrido and Luis Ceballos.

International career
Illesca represented Chile at under-20 level in the 1991 South American Championship.

At senior level, he was a substitute in the World Cup qualification matches versus Peru and Bolivia in 1997. In addition, he took part in the friendly match versus Millonarios in October 1997.

Personal life
Since he was a child, Illesca is nicknamed Bototo (Boot), like a comics character from Chilean magazine Barrabases, whose name coincides with the Escuela Barrabases where he began his career.

As a curiosity, the news about the arrest of a drug trafficker nicknamed Bototo Illesca, like Mauricio, was shown in a Chilean TV program from Mega channel in 2011. His former fellow footballer Tincho Gálvez thought that it was about Mauricio and called him, realizing that their nicknames matched.

Post-retirement
He graduated as football manager at the Instituto Nacional del Fútbol (National Football Institute).

He has studied and spent time in sport management and sport event organization. He is the executive director of Juventus Academy in Santiago, Chile, a franchise of Italian club Juventus, organizing sport events such as Bianconero Cup. Through his enterprise and football academy Futuro Azul (Blue Future), he has organized youth championships such as Coquimbo Cup, Santiago Kids and Santiago Cup Inter.