In the summer of 2010, Dani Pacheco was the top scorer at the European Under-19 Championship. At Liverpool he was the little Spaniard who shone in the reserves, and for a while there was real hope that he might be the next youngster to break through.
It never quite happened at Anfield. He played 17 times for the first team, never scored, and spent most of his last few years at the club out on loan. But he gave Kopites a few lovely glimpses of what he could do, and he has gone on to carve out a long career that is still going today.
From La Masia to Merseyside
Pacheco was born in the province of Málaga on 5 January 1991. He came through the youth ranks at Barcelona, where there was no shortage of attacking talent, and in the summer of 2007 he swapped Catalonia for Merseyside.
He was 16 when he arrived. Small, quick and clever with the ball, he could play anywhere across the front line, and it did not take long for word to spread about the youngster in the reserves.
A first touch to remember
His chance came on 9 December 2009, on a rain-soaked night at Anfield. Liverpool were already out of the Champions League, and with 76 minutes gone Rafa Benítez sent the 18-year-old on for Alberto Aquilani against Fiorentina.
With his very first touch he collected the ball on the left of the box, turned and drilled a low shot that Sébastien Frey had to push round the post. Alberto Gilardino struck in stoppage time to give Fiorentina a 2-1 win, but the new lad had made people sit up.
On Boxing Day he made his Premier League debut, again replacing Aquilani, in a 2-0 win over Wolves at Anfield.
The assist against Unirea
His best moment in a Liverpool shirt came on 18 February 2010, in the first leg of the Europa League last-32 tie against Unirea Urziceni at Anfield.
It was a frustrating night. The Romanian champions sat deep and defended in numbers, and the game was goalless when Pacheco came off the bench with a quarter of an hour left. Six minutes later Ryan Babel swung in a cross, Pacheco headed it back across goal, and David N’Gog turned it in. It was the only goal of the game.
It turned out to be his one and only assist for the first team.
A summer in France
That July, Pacheco went to the European Under-19 Championship in France and lit it up. He scored twice against Portugal, got another against Italy, and opened the scoring in the semi-final win over England.
Spain lost the final 2-1 to the hosts in Caen, beaten by a late header, but Pacheco still played his part, threading the pass for Rodrigo to give Spain the lead. His four goals won him the tournament’s top scorer award.
When he came back to Liverpool he was handed the No. 12 shirt for the new season.
Loans and a promotion push
First-team chances were hard to come by, though. Roy Hodgson gave him a handful of appearances in 2010-11, mostly in the Europa League, and in March 2011 he went to Norwich City on an emergency loan.
He made a real impact in East Anglia. Paul Lambert’s side were chasing a second promotion in a row, and Pacheco scored twice in six Championship games, including the fifth goal, in the fourth minute of stoppage time, as local rivals Ipswich were beaten 5-1 at Portman Road. Norwich went up to the Premier League.
In 2011-12 he joined Atlético Madrid on loan, but he went straight on to Rayo Vallecano, where he played 11 times in La Liga.
The last of his 17
Back at Liverpool, Brendan Rodgers gave him a few more games in the autumn of 2012. His last appearance came on 8 November 2012, as a second-half substitute in a 1-0 Europa League defeat to Anzhi Makhachkala in Russia.
In January 2013 he went on loan to Huesca in the Spanish second tier, who were relegated at the end of the season. On the final day of the summer transfer window, in September 2013, he left Liverpool for good and joined Alcorcón.
In total he played 17 times for Liverpool and did not score.
Three promotions in a row
That is far from the end of the story. Pacheco signed for Real Betis in 2014 and helped them win promotion back to La Liga at the first attempt.
He then went on loan to Alavés, who went up in 2016, and then to Getafe, where he scored twice in the 3-1 win over Tenerife in the second leg of the 2017 play-off final. Getafe went up and signed him permanently. Three promotions in three seasons is quite a record.
In 2018 he went home to Málaga, and after a short spell at Logroñés and a few months in Cyprus with Aris Limassol, he moved to Poland in 2022 to join Górnik Zabrze.
Still going in Poland
In 2024 he signed for Wisła Płock in the Polish second tier, and in his first season there he helped them win promotion to the Ekstraklasa, the top flight. He is still with them now, at 35, and in February 2026 he signed a new contract that runs until the summer of 2027.
A dislocated shoulder, suffered against Wisła Kraków in August, has kept him out for nearly three months, and he is expected to return later this month.
Once a Red
Dani Pacheco did not become the star some of us hoped he would be. He arrived as a teenager with a big reputation, and there was simply too much competition in front of him.
But he gave us that first touch against Fiorentina and the clever header that set up the winner against Unirea, and nearly two decades later he is still going, a proper professional who has made the most of his talent. Not a bad career for the kid from the reserves.
