On September 30, 2001, almost 22 years ago, Avila was born in Rosario, Argentina. A city almost two hundred kilometres northwest of the capital Buenos Aires. Two cities that, before Avila leaves for Europe, play a prominent role in the start of his career as a professional football player.
Rosario
The career of the young Avila starts at his place of birth, at the clubs Morning Star and later at Club Atlético Tiro Federal. Both clubs are located in Rosario, and Avila moves from the latter to Rosario Central, a club at the highest level in Argentina.
Via the second team, Avila earned a transfer to the capital in 2019. Boca Juniors is interested and signed the defender after paying a two million euros transfer fee. The Argentine only makes a few minutes for Boca Juniors, so he joins his former club on loan in 2021. Avila plays a great season and becomes a key figure in the last line of defence.
Avila plays 35 official matches at the club, scoring three goals. Despite his average height, he scores all these goals with his head. He played seventeen matches in the Superliga and ten in the Copa de la Liga. In those, he won 73% of his defensive and 63% of his attacking duels. Besides that, he played eight matches in the Copa Sudamericana.
After his strong season, he returns to Boca Juniors at the start of 2022, but that period is short-lived. A European club reports to the Argentinians, and the two reach an agreement in the summer of 2022. Avila leaves Boca Juniors after 12 official matches to join the Belgian Royal Antwerp.
Europe
In his debut season, he plays 26 official matches for the Belgians, where he plays together with former Ajax player Toby Alderweireld. The latter ensures Royal Antwerp wins the league on the last day of the competition thanks to a 2-2 draw against KRC Genk. This means Avila won the double in his first season since Royal Antwerp also won the Belgian Cup after a 0-2 victory against KV Mechelen.
If we dive deeper into his first season in Belgium, we can see that Avila mostly played as a left wing-back, while he spent most of his matches in Argentina as a left centre-back. In 26 games, he gave one assist: during the 0-1 victory in the competition duel against KRC Genk. He plays sixteen matches in the Jupiler Pro League and six in the playoffs for the championship. His passing accuracy is 80%, and he wins 69% of his defensive duels. He also plays four matches in the Croky Cup in the 2022/2023 season.
Before finalising his transfer to Ajax, Avila made a few minutes for the Belgians this season. He started in the victorious Supercup match against KV Mechelen and played the full 90 minutes twice against KV Kortrijk (6-0 victory) and OH Leuven: 1-1. He gives one assist during the match against Kortrijk.
Brother
At the sight of Avila, you first notice his tattoos. One symbolises his brother, who is also active on the European pitches: the eight-year older Luis Ezequiel 'Chimy' Avila. The striker played, just like Gaston, at Club Atlético Tiro Federal before transferring to the Argentinian Superliga. The older brother makes a name for himself at San Lorenzo and plays over seventy matches at the Spanish SD Huesca before transferring to Osasuna in 2019. The attacker was responsible for eight goals in 29 matches in La Liga last season.
Back to Ajax player Avila. The defender succeeds, looking at this position, Nico Tagliafico, Lisandro Martínez and Lisandro Magallán. There is one fellow countryman in the current squad: Gero Rulli. Avila will be the tenth Argentine in Amsterdam service. Besides the earlier named players, Juan, Ivan César Gabrich, Mauro Rosales, Darío Cvitanich, and Lucas Ocampos were his predecessors.
