Carlos (footballer, born 1948)
Spanish footballer
Carlos Ruiz Herrero (born 7 June 1948), known simply as Carlos, is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a forward.
He spent 11 seasons in La Liga with Athletic Bilbao, appearing in 275 competitive games and scoring 115 goals.
Club career
Born in Bilbao, Biscay, the third of ten sons in a large family, Carlos played 11 seasons with Athletic Bilbao plus one with the reserves, having been signed in 1969 from Basque neighbours CD Getxo. On 12 September 1970 he made his debut for the first team, playing the dying minutes of the 1–1 home draw against FC Barcelona.
Carlos continued to be used regularly by the club in the following years, but he also had to deal with several injuries. He helped the Lions to the final of the Copa del Rey in 1973 and 1977; in the former edition, he came on as a late substitute for Antón Arieta in the 2–0 win over CD Castellón. He scored ten times during the latter, including once in the penalty shootout loss to Real Betis in the decisive match (2–2 after 120 minutes) in Madrid.
In the 1974–75 season, Carlos scored a career-best 19 goals in 32 games for a tenth place in La Liga, winning the Pichichi Trophy in the process. On 18 May 1977, he put his side 2–1 up at home against Juventus FC in the final of the UEFA Cup – his last of five during their continental run – but the Italians won the trophy on the away goals rule.
Carlos still enjoyed two seasons in double digits until he left Athletic, including 1977–78 with 16 goals.
The public source identifies “Carlos (footballer, born 1948)” as spanish footballer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Carlos, footballer and born.
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The entry’s evidential value lies in the named roles, institutions and publications that can be tested against primary documentation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 1, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1043209. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1948, 1969, 1970 and 1973.
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This entry incorporates text from “Carlos (footballer, born 1948)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.