Just over a year ago Jese Rodriguez admitted to feeling pessimistic about his Real Madrid future.
“I’m gradually losing hope,” he responded when asked about his first-team aspirations at the Bernabeu. “If the opportunities don’t come, you lose hope.”
A hybrid attacker who can play across the front line, Jese had yet to make an indent in Madrid’s senior squad as his 20th birthday approached. Despite a season with the club’s reserve side Castilla that would see him break Emilio Butragueno’s 29-year goal-scoring mark, it seemed unlikely his chance would come as long as Jose Mourinho was managing the senior team.
In fact, Mourinho so distrusted the club’s development strategy that the previous October he had wondered aloud whether Jese would ever make the cut in the Spanish capital.
“There are Castilla players that play in positions that do not exist in the first team—like Jese, who plays as a ‘nine-and-a-half,’” he remarked in a verbal assault on Alberto Toril’s B-team setup.
“Also,” he added, “our wide players play further forward…There is little common ground in terms of the style of play, and the kids are the ones who end up paying the price.”
Discouraged, Jese even hinted at a falling-out with Aitor Karanka, a Mourinho assistant who had previously pushed for the Spain U-21’s call-up to Real’s first team.
Jese’s agent began arranging a loan move to Bayer Leverkusen, but just as the deal was about to be sanctioned an unlikely saviour swooped in to salvage Jese’s Madrid career—a club legend whose piece of diplomacy would pay off big-time just a few months later.
In direct opposition to much of the Madrid bureaucracy, Zinedine Zidane took a stand for Jese, advocating his immediate switch to the senior squad under incoming manager Carlo Ancelotti.
Club president Florentino Perez backed the World Cup winner, telling Spanish radio in May that “Zizou doesn’t think it’s a good idea for Jese to go out on loan.”
Both men have since been repaid for their faith. In spades.
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Although he waited until the final week of November for his first start of the season, Jese has since become invaluable to Real Madrid, who suddenly find themselves alone atop La Liga—an accomplishment he has had a significant hand in delivering.
Between late December and mid-February he scored seven goals in 13 matches in all competitions, at one point finding the back of the net in four successive starts.
“Jese has talent like crazy, and he’s not even 21 yet!” raved Ancelotti last month, later adding that there were examples of similar players who had enjoyed good seasons and then continued their form at the World Cup.
But Jese has yet to convince Spain manager Vicente del Bosque that he deserves a place on the plane to Brazil.
On Friday he was called into Julen Lopetegui’s U-21 squad for next week’s friendly against Germany, where he’ll likely play a starting role alongside club teammates Daniel Carvajal, Isco and Alvaro Morata.
Del Bosque, however, singled out Jese in announcing his senior squad the same day, telling reporters the forward had been “playing great” for Madrid and had been on his radar for some time.
“But I have to do the [squad of] 23 for the World Cup in the future,” he added. “Let’s see what happens in the next four months.”
In other words, Jese could still play himself into Del Bosque’s plans, and given his recent past it would be foolish to bet against him.
On Wednesday he turned 21, and in the space of a year he went from surplus to requirements to potential Spanish champion and World Cup attacker.
It’s easy to cheer for a story like that.
Jerrad Peters is a Winnipeg-based writer. Follow him on Twitter.