Ulises Hernán de la Cruz Bernardo (born February 8, 1974 in
Piquiucho) is a
Ecuadorian football currently with
LDU Quito.
De la Cruz has set up a
charity,
Friends of FundeCruz, in his home village to fund a number of projects serving the local community.
Club career
Early career
De la Cruz's first team was the Ecuadorian side
Sociedad Deportivo Quito, for whom he started playing at the age of 16 in the junior division and later the professional division. Nonetheless, De la Cruz's breakthrough season was with LDU Quito in 1998. He scored three goals in the final against Emelec (7–0).
Alex McLeish, the manager of
Scottish Premier League club
Hibernian, watched de la Cruz play in international matches for Ecuador, and then signed him in June 2001 for a club record fee of £700,000. De la Cruz scored two goals for Hibs, both coming in an
Edinburgh derby match against Hibs' local rivals
Hearts.,
The Independent, 22 October 2001. He only played for Hibs in one season; after de la Cruz played in the
2002 FIFA World Cup, he was signed by
Graham Taylor for
Aston Villa.
Aston Villa
In De la Cruz's first season at the club, he played 24 times, scoring one league goal, against Charlton Athletic. He featured more in the
2003-04 season after
David O'Leary took over, and an injury to
Mark Delaney ensured that de la Cruz could start more games than he had...
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