Player profile
About Miguel Almirón
Miguel Ángel Almirón Rejala (born 10 February 1994) is a Paraguayan professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder or right winger for Major League Soccer club Atlanta United and the Paraguay national team. Almirón began his career at Cerro Porteño and transferred to Lanús in 2015. After winning the 2016 Argentine Primera División, he signed for Atlanta United for $8 million. He was named in the MLS Best XI for both of his seasons in Major League Soccer, as well as MLS Newcomer of the Year for 2017. After helping Atlanta to the MLS Cup 2018 he signed for Newcastle for £21 million, a club record and the highest fee for an MLS player. Almirón made his international debut for Paraguay in 2015, and represented the country at the Copa América in 2016, 2019 and 2021. Almirón grew up in an impoverished family where his father worked 18-hour shifts as a security guard and his mother worked in a supermarket. The seven members of his household slept in three bedrooms, and he had to share a bed with his mother until he was 18. Almirón played for the Paraguay under-20 national team in the 2013 South American Youth Football Championship in Argentina, and was highly involved as his team finished second to Colombia. Later that year, he was called up for the 2013 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Turkey, where Paraguay reached the last 16. On 5 September 2015, Almirón made his senior international debut in a 3–2 friendly loss away to Chile, playing the final nine minutes in place of Jonathan Fabbro. Manager Ramón Díaz called him up the following May for the Copa América Centenario in the United States, where he started two matches in a group-stage exit. In March 2019, in a friendly against Mexico at Levi's Stadium, Almirón came on as a substitute. Seven minutes later, he received a straight red card for a foul on José Juan Vázquez in which he dragged his studs down the back of the opponent's leg. On 10 October the same year, he was sent off for diving in a 1–0 friendly loss to Serbia. Almirón has been married to his wife Alexia Notto since November 2016; the couple's first child, a son, was born in June 2021.
