Roque Luiz Santa Cruz Cantero was born on 16th August 1981 in Asuncion, Paraguay. In 1988, he joined Olimpia Asuncion’s youth division, where he became the top scorer over several seasons.
At just fifteen years of age, he was invited to join with the first team training sessions, but didn’t make his professional debut until 1998 against Cerro Porterio in the Paraguayan league at just sixteen. His club went on to win the league in 1998 and 1999, while Santa Cruz won the Paraguayan footballer of the year.
He received a full international call up for Paraguay at the age of 17 and has so far made 61 appearances for the national side, scoring 20 times.
In 1999 he moved to Bayern Munich and made 155 appearances for the Bundesliga outfit, scoring 31 times. He was part of the squad that won the German league and cup, Champions League and Intercontinental Cup.
He moved to Blackburn in 2007 for a fee of £3.5m. his first goal came on his debut against Middlesbrough and scored his first hat-trick during Rovers 5-3 defeat to Wigan. He also scored an equaliser against City as Blackburn became the first side to avoid defeat at Eastlands under Sven Goran Eriksson.
Santa Cruz made just 57 appearances for Blackburn, scoring 23 times before his move to City in June 2009.