Carlos Darwin Quintero Villalba (born 19 September 1987) is a Colombian professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Categoría Primera A club América de Cali. Quintero is also known by his nickname of El Científico del Gol (The Goal Scientist). He has played various roles throughout his career, spending time leading the line as a striker, playing out wide as a winger, and playing underneath another striker as a second striker and central attacking midfielder throughout his career. His main attributes throughout his career have been his pace, creativity, and dribbling ability.
Club career
Early career and Deportes Tolima
Quintero began his career with Panadería Kuty training school and Barsa Fútbol Club. His mentor Élkin Congote tried to find a better situation for Quintero to develop and set up trials with more prestigious youth teams in Cali, Carlos Sarmiento Lora School and Selección Valle, as well as Boca Juniors, but they all rejected him. Quintero did catch the attention of Humberto Ortiz, a former top flight coach and now a scout for Categoría Primera A club Deportes Tolima. Tolima and Ortiz negotiated with Barsa and Quintero joined the youth ranks of Tolima in 2004. Quintero was part of Jorge Luis Bernal's Tolima youth side that won gold for men's football at the 2004 National Games of Colombia.
Quintero made his first team debut at the age of 18 on 18 September 2005 in a 1–0 defeat to Atlético Junior. That would be his only first team appearance of the year. In 2006, after being placed on a special vitamin supplement and workout routine to help Quintero bulk up, he was called up to the Tolima first team, which was now managed by Quintero's former youth coach Jorge Luis Bernal. He scored his first goal on 19 February 2006 in a 3–1 win over Boyacá Chicó. Quintero scored his first career hat-trick on 26 February in a 7–3 victory against Envigado. He went on to score 19 times in 42 appearances in his first full season. Quintero and Tolima finished the Campeonato Finalización top of the table, but they lost in the final 2–1 on aggregate to Cúcuta Deportivo. Quintero also made his debut in continental football in 2006, first appearing and scoring in the Copa Sudamericana on 22 August in a 3–1 win over Independiente Medellín in the first leg of the first stage, with Tolima eventually qualifying to the next stage 4–2 on aggregate. He would score again on 21 September to give Tolima a 2–2 draw with Mineros de Guayana, with Tolima advancing on away goals. Tolima would advance to the Round of 16 before falling to eventual champions Pachuca.
2007 saw Quintero make his Copa Libertadores debut on 7 March, with Quintero scoring once to give Tolima an important 1–0 win over Cerro Porteño. In the final match of the group against Cúcuta Deportivo, Quintero scored once, but it was not enough as Tolima lost 4–3 in Ibagué, and with this result Tolima were eliminated by finishing third in the group. Quintero and Tolima did not enjoy a successful 2007 Campeonato Apertura, finishing 12th and failing to qualify for the playoffs.
Krylia Sovetov
In July 2007, Quintero joined Russian Premier League side FC Krylia Sovetov Samara along with fellow Colombian and Tolima teammate Juan Carlos Escobar. He made his debut for Krylia Sovetov on 11 August, coming on as a substitute in a 2–0 defeat to Spartak Moscow. He scored his first goal for the club on 28 October in a 3–0 win over Rubin Kazan. It was a rough season for Quintero, who only scored one goal and only played 434 minutes. The season was rough for Krylia Sovetov as well, finishing in 13th place and tied on points with relegated side Kuban Krasnodar.
Deportivo Pereira
In 2008, Leonid Slutsky took over as the head coach for Krylia Sovetov and sent Quintero to Colombia on loan with an option to buy to Primera A club Deportivo Pereira for the first half of the Russian Premier League season. Quintero scored his first goal for Pereira on 6 April in a 4–1 defeat to América de Cali. A week later, he scored twice in a 5–2 win over Deportivo Pasto. Quintero ended the Torneo Apertura with 4 goals from 12 appearances and was voted as the best player in the team by a fan poll on the club website.
Quintero returned to Samara at the end of May. He trained with Krylia Sovetov for two weeks, but Slutsky did not see a place for him in the team, and he officially left the club on 23 June. Atlético Nacional came close to signing him, with an agreement in place between Krylia Sovetov, Nacional, and Quintero. However Quintero would end up returning to Deportivo Pereira after they decided to exercise their option to buy that was part of the loan agreement.