José Cárdenas

José Cárdenas has moved through Ecuadorian football in short stints rather than long tenures, rebuilding his position at a new club every year or two rather than settling in one goal for a decade. His career began at El Nacional, where he stayed for five seasons before a run of transfers took him through CD América de Quito, Aucas, LDU de Quito, Universidad Católica and Orense in the space of a few years — a sequence that reads less like restlessness and more like a goalkeeper repeatedly earning a fresh look from clubs higher up the table.

The move to LDU de Quito stands out on that list: joining one of Ecuador's most decorated clubs marked the high point of his climb through the domestic game, even though his time there was brief. He left before the year was out for Universidad Católica, where he found more stability, staying through the end of 2023.

Cárdenas arrived at Orense in January 2024 as a free agent, and a year later made the same kind of move to join Delfín SC, again without a transfer fee attached. No period with a national team appears in the available record, so his story so far is built entirely at club level, one Ecuadorian shirt after another.