Having appeared in 408 La Liga matches over 14 seasons (57 goals), he possessed a vast array of skills: dribble, shot and physique, and his career was almost exclusively associated with Valladolid and Atlético Madrid.

[2] He helped the side barely avoid La Liga relegation,[3] and scored his first goal in the competition on 16 December 1990 in a 3–1 home win against Valencia CF.

He was a key member of the squad that won an historical double in 1995–96, contributing nine league goals in 37 games;[5][6] accordingly, at the end of the season, he was given the Spanish Footballer of the Year award by both the Madrid newspaper El País and the prestigious football magazine Don Balón, being the only Atlético player to win both awards the same year,[7] and netted a career-best 14 goals the following campaign.

[16] He represented the country at the 1994 FIFA World Cup in the United States, where he was the nation's leading scorer at three (scoring twice against Bolivia in a 3–1 group stage victory)[17] and also in UEFA Euro 1996 in England, where he netted a late equaliser against France.

Spanish movie director Pedro Almodóvar included his dribbling against FC Barcelona's defender Miguel Ángel Nadal in his 1997 film Live Flesh.