HUGHES DIDN’T TRUST ME ...HE’S THE REASON I LEFT STOKE
Toon star Joselu faces his old club
JOSELU smiles as he relives the month of August. The birth of his first child, Leo. Signing for Newcastle United. A debut goal in a 3-0 victory.
It earned a standing ovation from 52,000 supporters and a personal message from Alan Shearer. ‘Wow!’ he says. But there were tears, too. He takes a breath, then explains: ‘My dad died in late June. It was sudden. He was not sick. He just stayed asleep. We still don’t know why.
‘I had been in Barcelona at a wedding. My sister called to tell me.
‘So when my son was born, my mum cried a lot, she knows my dad will never meet him.
‘It makes you look at life differently, you never know when it will be over. You have to enjoy every day.’
His father, Ramon, was a well-known writer, artist and municipal official. He was 68.
When Joselu scored against West Ham on his first start for Newcastle, he pointed to the heavens.
‘I felt a lot of emotion in that moment,’ says the 27-year-old. ‘That was for my dad. When I was coming off and everyone stood up, that sensation was amazing — for once I was glad I was substituted!
‘All of the people in the street are now stopping me.
‘I feel something special here already.’ Joselu faces Stoke today, the club who sold him to Newcastle for £5million.
He scored four times from 10 Premier League starts for Mark Hughes’s side after signing from Hannover two years ago. He spent last season on loan at Deportivo. The problem, he says, was Hughes.
‘I had no chance. I scored goals, I played well, but the manager did not give me a run of games,’ says the former Real Madrid striker, one of five Spaniards now under the charge of compatriot Rafa Benitez on Tyneside.
‘He (Hughes) is the reason I’m not there. He didn’t trust me. Now I have a manager who does. When I had the offer to come, it was the only place I wanted to be.’
There is something of the cult hero about this tattooed 6ft 3in frontman, who was born in Stuttgart, Germany and lived there for three years before the family returned to Galicia in north-west Spain. Aged 11, he moved to live with his aunt 80 miles away after signing for Celta Vigo, starting a new school and returning home at weekends to help in the family restaurant. How hard was that?
‘Not at all,’ he says, ‘When I left my wife Melanie and son in Madrid last week, that was difficult. But at 11, you are not thinking about tax or cars. You are thinking about playing football and staying out as late as you can!’
Did he earn a few pesetas in the restaurant though?
‘No, I worked for love,’ he says. ‘I pulled the drinks and took the money. If I wasn’t a footballer, I may be running the restaurant now, why not?’
Courted as a schoolboy by Real, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid, there was no chance of Joselu not making it. His mother, Elvira, made him stay with Celta. ‘She knew what was best,’ he says.
By 18 he had made his debut and two years later he signed for Real. Even now, seven years on, there is wide-eyed wonder when Joselu reflects on his two seasons at the Bernabeu.
‘I could not believe I trained with the first-team so quickly,’ he recalls. ‘ You go to the dressing-room and it’s Kaka, Raul, Cristiano Ronaldo, Marcelo, Pepe. You sit and just look at the floor, so young and nervous. On tour in L.A. we stayed in the hotel and could not go out — so many fans!’
Back in the B team he was top scorer along with Alvaro Morata, the Chelsea striker and friend with whom he has a wager over this season’s goals return. In May of his first year, Real boss Jose Mourinho told Joselu that a place on the bench for a home match against Almeria awaited if he trained well, which he did.
‘I asked for 50 tickets and the other players were like, “You are a young player, you don’t ask for 50 tickets, my friend,” but I got them,’ he says.
‘When Mourinho told me to warm up I only watched the clock, “Come on, please, put me on, I’m warm, I’m ready!”
‘I replaced Karim Benzema in the 85th minute and 60 seconds later Cristiano crossed and I scored. I ran to Cristiano and was like, “Thank you, thank you”. Incredible!’
The following season Joselu made his second and final appearance, scoring again within minutes of coming on.
He quit Madrid for Germany. ‘I don’t regret it, I wanted to play,’ he says. He scored 29 goals in three seaons with Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt and Hannover. Last year, with Deportivo, he netted twice in a 3-2 defeat at Real.
‘I have more goals per minute in that stadium than anyone else, even Cristiano!’ he laughs. For the record, his return is four goals in 50 minutes. Does anything beat the feeling of scoring at the Bernabeu?
‘When you hear your baby cry and you take him and he is suddenly calm... this is the best feeling in the world,’ he says. His wife, son and mother are set to arrive in Newcastle for the first time this week.
‘Leo has his Newcastle strip, a new player for the academy!’ he jokes. ‘It’s his only shirt, so now he supports us. My dad would have been proud.’
After a summer of tears, Joselu is smiling once more.
‘My newborn has a Newcastle shirt already’