Real Madrid’s second highest league goalscorer this season isn’t even at the club.
It’s time to start paying attention to Raúl de Tomás, LaLiga’s most exciting young striker.
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Raul De Tomas in action against Barcelona
In a campaign where Real Madrid have struggled to replace the around 50 strikes a season scored by Cristiano Ronaldo, one of the biggest goal threats on the club’s books isn’t even playing at the Bernabéu.
There was something fitting at the weekend when De Tomás scored his 13th league goal of the season, doing so against Valencia and sending Rayo Vallecano on their way to an unlikely first victory in nine. Just three days earlier, his parent club Real Madrid had been comprehensively bettered at the Mestalla. Yet there was RDT, as he likes to be known, playing a decisive part in ending Los Che’s historic 17 game unbeaten run.
Did he feel particularly motivated to avenge the club that nurtured him through their academy from the age of seven? Perhaps, but RDT already had plenty of motivation regardless. Rayo are in a dire situation and, to be brutally honest, are a pretty dire team.
Their slim hopes of LaLiga survival rest almost solely on the shoulders of their exceptionally talented centre-forward, who has scored 38 percent of the Madrid minnows’ league goals in 2018/19. He has been directly involved in 41 percent, if the assist picked up earlier this month against Eibar is taken into account.
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In a world where Lionel Messi is on course to near the 40 goal mark in LaLiga, 13 may not sound like a lot, but at a team as poor as Rayo it really is.
More often than not RDT is asked to create his own goals, provided with little service of quality or consistency, and that necessity to invent is reflected in the variety of his strikes: six with his right, five with his left, one with his head, one from a direct free-kick.
Many of the goals have been great goals, too. There was the thumping, curling left-footed strike from outside the area that got the better of Espanyol. Or the beautifully struck volley that got the better of Getafe, one of the toughest defences in Spain. There have also been plenty of poachers’ goals, the forward apt at sneakily drifting away from his marker to find just enough space and tap home in the area. At 24, he now looks the finished product, a complete elite footballer who can hurt teams in any number of ways.
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RDT battles for aerial supremacy.
Currently the joint second highest scoring Spaniard in LaLiga behind Iago Aspas, not a single one of the Rayo man’s strikes have come from the spot, and if penalties were removed from the equation he would stand unchallenged above his compatriots in that chart. He’s even said to be on the radar of Spain coach Luis Enrique: though a call-up hasn’t materialised yet, the methodical Asturian will certainly be paying attention.
None of this has gone unnoticed at Madrid. Stories have started to gather pace suggesting that Zinedine Zidane – who coached RDT at Castilla – wants him back as part of his squad for next season. ROn paper it looks like a no-brainer: if a striker can score 13 goals virtually out of nothing for Rayo, imagine what he could do with world class service for Los Blancos. Top scorer Karim Benzema is 31 and in desperate need of some quality back-up, so from a financial perspective it also makes perfect sense to provide that at the cost of zero, in a summer where there is likely to be a big outlay to strengthen other positions.
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Will Zidane call on De Tomas next season?
But the player will have his say, and RDT is not a yes man. The academy product already had the chance to return to Madrid last summer, then-coach Julen Lopetegui saying he was part of his plans as a squad player. But realising minutes would be scarce, the forward instead insisted on being loaned out to Rayo where he would get regular football.
A bold move, but one that paid off, and shows the mentality of a true competitor. “It was my decision. I’m a winner, not conformist. I’ve grown by playing, not by sitting in the stands, that’s why I decided to leave,†he explained to Onda Cero.
Zidane has a decision to make in the summer: back RDT properly, or risk his talent being exploited elsewhere. Because if the reassurances De Tomás is looking for can’t be provided at the Bernabéu, he will surely seek them somewhere else. Somewhere much bigger than Vallecas.
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