I’m a former Premier League winner – now after retiring I work for a sweets company
LEONARDO ULLOA tasted the sweetest of victories as part of Leicester City’s miraculous 5,000-1 Premier League title win.
And he is still getting a sugar rush in his new job at a confectionery company.
Ulloa, 37, arrived at the King Power for a club-record £8million from Brighton when the Foxes returned to the Premier League in 2014.
He scored twice in the dramatic 5-3 win over Manchester United just a few weeks later before helping keep the club up with the greatest escape.
Then in 2015-16, the Argentine striker played a key role in Claudio Ranieri’s incredible side that defied all odds and expectations to be crowned champions.
Despite starting just seven Premier League games, Ulloa regularly replaced Shinji Okazaki around the hour mark, coming up trumps with six important goals.
However, it was his sliding finish in the 89th minute to secure Leicester a 1-0 win over Norwich that caused shockwaves – quite literally.
Coming off the back of the 2-1 defeat at Arsenal in February, Leicester’s third and final league defeat, Ulloa poked home in the closing moments to secure all three points and send the King Power wild.
The celebrations were so intense that University of Leicester geology students detected a historic 0.3 magnitude earthquake on a nearby seismometer.
Ulloa was at team-mate Jamie Vardy’s house for the “Vardy Party” as Chelsea’s 2-2 draw with Tottenham confirmed Leicester as champions, then appeared for the Foxes in their Champions League run to the quarter-finals.
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But as his minutes dried up following a public falling out with Ranieri, he returned to the Amex on loan in January 2018 then signed for Mexican side Pachuca that summer.
He then finished his playing days in 2021 with two years in Spain at Rayo Vallecano, hanging up his boots after a bad knee injury.
He told the Brighton Argus: “We were able to get Rayo back into the first division.
“I’d had some offers from Argentina and Chile to go back but I decided not to because of the family, because of me, because of everything.
“After retiring there’s a lapse when you need to adapt yourself because I’ve always been involved in football but I’m getting used to this new life.
“Mentally, I was prepared for it. The injury worked against me but, in the end, it was still my decision.”
LEO-VING IT UP
However, rather than moving back to Argentina, Ulloa settled in Madrid with his wife and daughters.
And that has opened the doorway to his unexpected career change.
As well as staying involved with football through some player representation work, the 6ft 2ins ex-striker is part of Madrid-based desserts company Sweet Monkey.
The business, set up by pastry chef and chocolatier Javier Guillen, specialises in creating delicious ice creams and frozen pastries – packed full of flavour and using lots of fruit in the recipes.
And this new venture certainly is the cherry on top of Ulloa’s wonderful cake of a career.