Pervis Josué Estupiñán Tenorio

Estupiñán made his name outside Ecuador the long way round: signed by Watford in July 2016, he never played a single match for the club's first team, spending four years farmed out on loan instead — to Granada B, Granada, Almería, Mallorca and Osasuna. That circuit of Spanish football shaped him more than his time at Vicarage Road ever did.

The breakthrough came at Villarreal, who paid £14.9 million for him in September 2020. He made 53 appearances there and won the UEFA Europa League in the 2020–21 season, the first major trophy of his career. His form for Ecuador followed the same curve: he was named in the Copa América Team of the Tournament in 2021 and went on to be part of the squad at the 2022 World Cup.

A move to Brighton & Hove Albion in August 2022 gave him his most sustained run in England. He made 84 Premier League appearances there, starting 72 of them, and scored four goals, with 104 appearances in all competitions across three seasons on the south coast.

In July 2025, AC Milan signed him for a reported €17 million plus €2 million in add-ons, making him the first Ecuadorian player in the club's history. He has made 24 appearances for Milan, scoring once. For the national team, he has been capped 56 times and scored five goals, a record built up alongside a club career defined by patience — four years waiting for a chance that never came at Watford, then a rapid rise once it did elsewhere.