Luis Antonio Valencia was born in very poor Ecuadorian city of Lago Agrio. He spent his childhood days practicing football in the muddy fields of his hometown.

His first formal training began with the state controlled military football club of El Nacional in the year 2001.He spend three years in the club learning the game within the confinements of military barracks. In 2004 he was given a permanent seat in the El Nacional team. There he managed to score a total of 20 goals in 84 performances. In 2005 he moved to the Spanish club Villarreal. However he did not get much opportunity to play for Villarreal as he was loaned out to a English premier league team Recreativo in the year 2005.

After having spent an unsuccessful year at Recreativo he was again loaned out to Wigan Athletic. He played there for an entire period of 2006-2007 and scored 6 goals in 47 appearances. In the year 2008 he was given a permanent position with Wigan Athletic .In the following year he caught the attention of Sir Alex Ferguson from Manchester United and was subsequently absorbed into the red devils team as apart of their summer sign up for an estimated amount of about £ 16 million.

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