On 14 September 2014, Sergio Rico González (Seville, 1 September 1993) made his La Liga debut for Sevilla FC, starting in a 2-0 home win over Getafe at the Ramón Sánchez-Pizjuán. Four days later he played his first Europa League match, against Feyenoord, and that same season ended with him lifting the trophy in Warsaw. It was the first of two European titles the Seville-born goalkeeper won with his hometown club before spells at Fulham, Paris Saint-Germain and Mallorca, and a move to Qatar’s Al-Gharafa in 2024.
Sevilla academy
Rico joined Sevilla’s academy in 2006 and worked his way up through the club’s youth teams. In 2011 he made his debut for Sevilla Atlético, the reserve side, where he spent three seasons before the step up. In July 2014 he was promoted to the first-team squad, then coached by Unai Emery, as cover for the Portuguese goalkeeper Beto. The Getafe game that September was his first chance at the top level.
Two Europa League titles with Sevilla
The 2014-15 season changed his career. An injury to Beto opened the door and Rico kept the job: he played 11 Europa League matches in that campaign, including the final on 27 May 2015 at the National Stadium in Warsaw. Sevilla came from behind to beat Dnipro 3-2, with two goals from Carlos Bacca; the Ukrainian side’s equaliser just before half-time was a Ruslan Rotan free kick. It was Sevilla’s fourth title in the competition and Rico’s first.
In 2015-16 he was the league goalkeeper, while David Soria took over in the Europa League and played the final in Basel on 18 May 2016, when Sevilla beat Liverpool 3-1. That gave Rico his second Europa League winner’s medal. He stayed in the squad until the summer of 2018 and made 170 competitive appearances for Sevilla in all.
One cap for Spain
Vicente del Bosque called him up to the Spain national team for the first time in May 2015, although he did not play on that occasion. A year later he was named in the 23-man squad for Euro 2016 as third-choice goalkeeper behind Iker Casillas and David de Gea. His debut came on 1 June 2016 in Salzburg, in a warm-up friendly against South Korea that Spain won 6-1: he replaced Casillas for the final 14 minutes. It was his only senior cap.
On loan at Fulham
On 9 August 2018 Sevilla loaned him for a season to Fulham, newly promoted to the Premier League. In London he made 29 league appearances and 32 in all competitions, in a campaign that ended with the club relegated to the Championship. He returned to Seville in the summer of 2019.
Paris Saint-Germain
On 1 September 2019 he joined Paris Saint-Germain on loan with an option to buy. His Ligue 1 debut was a 2-1 win away to Brest, and in that 2019-20 season the club won Ligue 1, the Coupe de France and the Coupe de la Ligue, as well as reaching the Champions League final. On 5 September 2020 PSG made the move permanent and Rico signed a four-year deal. He added the 2020 Trophée des Champions and the 2021 Coupe de France to his honours. The arrival of Gianluigi Donnarumma in July 2021 pushed him down to third choice.
Loan to Mallorca
On 21 January 2022 he joined Mallorca on loan until the end of the season. He made his debut on 2 February in the Copa del Rey quarter-finals, a 1-0 defeat away to Rayo Vallecano, and played 15 matches, 14 of them in La Liga. That same season PSG won the 2021-22 Ligue 1 title, which also appears among his honours. Back in Paris, he played no competitive first-team minutes in 2022-23 or 2023-24, and left the club in June 2024.
The 2023 accident and Al-Gharafa
On 28 May 2023, during the El Rocío pilgrimage in the province of Huelva, he was injured in an accident involving a horse that left him with a serious head injury. He was taken to the Virgen del Rocío University Hospital in Seville, where he spent 82 days, several weeks of them in an induced coma. He was discharged on 18 August 2023. After leaving PSG, he signed for Qatari club Al-Gharafa on 29 September 2024. Two days later, on 1 October 2024, he played a competitive match again: his team’s 4-2 home win over Al Ain in the AFC Champions League Elite.
TBCGoalkeeper