Francisco Pavón
Spanish association football player
Francisco Pavón Barahona (born 9 January 1980) is a Spanish former professional footballer who played as a centre-back.
His name became associated with the Los Galácticos policy when Real Madrid – where he spent most of his 13-year career – president Florentino Pérez promised to build a team full of Zidanes and Pavones – expensive high-profile recruits like Zinedine Zidane and youth team graduates like Pavón.
Over nine seasons, Pavón amassed La Liga totals of 125 matches and three goals, with his main club and Zaragoza.
Club career
Born in Madrid, Pavón progressed through the ranks at Real Madrid, starting with the junior team Tendillo until he established himself with the reserves. He made his La Liga debut against Athletic Bilbao at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium on 6 October 2001 and, shortly after that 2–0 win, signed a seven-year professional contract. He went on to make a further 27 league appearances during the season, adding that campaign's UEFA Champions League.
Pavón totalled 51 league matches in the next two years, scoring a rare goal on 8 May 2004 in a 2–3 home loss to Mallorca. His role would diminish drastically onwards, as he made no league appearances during 2006–07.
On 25 April 2007, media speculation indicated that Pavón was close to agreeing a four-year deal with Premier League club Bolton Wanderers, rejoining former teammate Iván Campo, but nothing came of it. He eventually put pen to paper a four-year contract with Real Zaragoza in July after his release from Real Madrid, but took part in just eight league games through the season as the Aragonese were relegated.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Francisco Pavón” is spanish association football player. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Francisco, Pavón and Spanish, not as a finished interpretation.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q367022. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2001, 2004 and 2006.
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This entry incorporates text from “Francisco Pavón” 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.