Striker who went from Real Madrid to Stoke... and back

Known as Crouchy to his team-mates, Joselu has peaked aged 34... and has City in his sights

OBSERVERS at Real Madrid’s Valdebebas training complex can be forgiven for wondering if there is something wrong with their hearing when shouts of ‘Crouchy! Crouchy!’ come trailing across the pitch.

The cries, that seem to be emanating from England midfielder Jude Bellingham, are directed at Joselu — the rangy centre forward who once shared a dressing room with Peter Crouch but has somehow gone from Stoke to the Santiago Bernabeu where he will face Manchester City tonight.

‘Crouch was an incredible guy, very funny,’ says the 34-year-old Spaniard. ‘He helped me a lot when I moved there (Engand). Jude started calling me that and others followed. I’m a tall striker and I like to get on the end of crosses but Crouch was two metres tall, I’m only 1.92!’

Stoke signed Joselu from Hannover for £5.75million in 2015 and there were high expectations about a player who came through Real Madrid’s academy to make his debut for them under Jose Mourinho.

Despite scoring just four goals for Stoke, Joselu (right) has fond memories of his year spent in the Potteries.

‘We finished ninth and beat both Manchester City and united at home. It was a good year and no one liked playing against us.’

The competition up front at Stoke: Bojan Krkic, Marko Arnautovic and Jonathan Walters, who he says he loved ‘especially for his fight and commitment’, limited his opportunities, but after a year on loan at Deportivo the following season, Newcastle paid Stoke £5m for his services.

‘Just not normal’ is how he describes the Toon army’s support. ‘They would take three or four thousand away in every game and on pre- season there would be three or four hundred with us 3,000km from Newcastle. People treated me well there.’

He says relatives enjoyed visiting from Spain. ‘I took them to the coast to have fish and chips and they loved it.’

But just as at Stoke, starts and goals were limited and after two seasons Joselu returned to Spain to sign for Alaves.

At 29, the only way looked down for him. But after scoring into double figures at struggling teams in his next four seasons he earned this loan move to Real Madrid and scored on his debut for Spain aged 33. Does it not all feel like a dream?

‘It’s true that the last year at Newcastle was not good so you have to drop your expectations. I knew in myself what I was capable of but also I knew how I’d played in that last year so the offers that came in were not as big.

‘Alaves is an important club in Spain but it’s not at Newcastle’s level. I had no problem with going there and doing the best I could and that helped me reach where I am now.

‘It would have been easier to say, “Nah! I’ve played at a higher level, I’m not dropping down”. I had signed for four years at Newcastle. I could have stayed and picked up my money and not played but I wanted to compete.’

So there is a question that he is now in a unique position to answer: is it easier to score at Real Madrid, (he has 14 goals this season) or Stoke and Newcastle?

‘It’s true that if you are in a team who get more of the ball there are more attacks on goal,’ he says. ‘But there is a lot of pressure here. At Real Madrid you always play with the whole world watching you.

‘You have to have your head right because one day you are up and then another day you are missing chances. I think my experience, above all abroad, has helped me.’

And Bellingh a m has helped this season too. In one game he seemed on a one- man mission to tee up Joselu who had missed a host of chances, and he finally enabled him to get the fourth goal in a win over Napoli. ‘I’d seen him play because I follow the Bundesliga,’ says Joselu of Bellingham. ‘ But it’s true that the level he has reached as a goalscorer, I don’t think anyone expected that. He’s different class. Physically he’s a beast. But he’s very modest and a very good team-mate.

‘And he’s landed well in the club because from day one he has tried to learn Spanish. He has tried to talk to everyone. He’s a humble lad. And that has touched the hearts of lots of people and been what has made him a very special person inside the dressing room. ‘I have a good relationship with him because I learned English in England and I was able to help him in the first few months.

‘ He’s a special player and I think he can achieve everything that he sets his mind to. Everyone we face would rather that Jude wasn’t playing.’

The fact the goals have flowed for Bellingham has made Joselu a Plan B option for Real Madrid, behind the Plan A of playing the England man just behind Vinicius and Rodrygo. But he still believes he offers the team something invaluably different with big centre forwards clearly still in fashion at some clubs — just look at City’s Erling Haaland.

‘There was a spell when coaches played without a nine but we were always there hidden away,’ he says. ‘The magic of football is that things don’t stay the same. If ( Manchester City boss Pep) Guardiola plays the same way as he did five years ago perhaps the results would not have been the same.’

If Madrid opt not to pay the £1.7m it will cost to keep him then there will be no shortage of takers for the Spain international.

WOULD he go back to England for a third time? It seems unlikely with his family settled in Madrid where his wife Melanie, who he says never stopped supporting him in the difficult times at Newcastle, is happy living close to her twin sister Daphne who is married to Joselu’s team-mate Dani Carvajal.

‘ I try to follow Stoke,’ he says. ‘ They can’t seem to get promotion but there are people still at the club that I know and I would like to see them in the Premier league again.

‘I had people from Stoke at my wedding. People from Newcastle too.’ Asked how they behaved, he laughs: ‘ Good, good! We turned the beer taps off at 2am!

‘You build a relationship with people who have maybe been 10 or 15 years at the club so then when you move on you still really want them to do well.’

Will he be asking anyone at Stoke, or Newcastle, how to get the better of Manchester City?

‘I don’t’ think it will be necessary,’ he laughs. ‘It’s going to be difficult, but very nice.’

He’s 34 now and these are the best days of his career.

‘You always believe if you get the chance then you’ll end up being able to enjoy moments like these,’ he says.