Fulham FC, is a football club based in western London. With their field overlooking the Thames, Fulham has a story that dates from 1879. It has been 146 years of competitive football that saw them winning the trophies exactly. Indeed, for many years, their annual fight against the relegation of the highest level of English football was an exciting characteristic of each season.
While the 2024-25 season is falling in its last weeks, Fulham is in 10th position, just five points from the security of European football next season and is one of the last eight clubs at FA Cup. A player appreciating this season is Raúl Alonso Jiménez of Mexico who is now, in thirty-three, at the veteran stadium in his career.
Almost 14 years ago, a young Jiménez made his first debut in the first team at the club America in Mexico in 2011. Many honors followed quickly, including a gold medal at the London Olympic Games in 2012 and a domestic title with America in 2013. In October of the same year, with their candidacy for the World Cup, Mexico was desperately needed to beat Panama when the two qualification.
With less than ten minutes to play, the score was 1-1. Jiménez recovered the ball in the midfield, swept it through the right wing and run forward. There, he was, in the center of the penalty surface, to recover the return pass. The ball found him with the back with a goal, which seemed to leave him few options. Jiménez triggered the ball and produced an acrobatic bicycle kick to score. Mexico was heading for the World Cup and Jiménez’s little piece of magic has become viral on the internet.
Having played the 2014 World Cup, Jiménez quickly exceeded the Mexican League and, in the following season, it was with Spanish Atlético Madrid. It seemed a big decision. Atlético burst under the manager Diego Simeone and had just won the Spanish League, while their counter-attack style should have adapted Jiménez. Madrid, however, did not work. There was too much competition for a player just 23 years old and not yet with the experience of playing in a European first class league. A goal in 28 games was a bad return for ten million euros and it was time to move on.
In August 2015, Jiménez seemed ready to join the side of the Premier League West Ham United, but he failed to run for his medical exam. The official account is that he had missed his flight to London after being too sleepy. More likely, he was convinced by his manager, Jorge Mendes, that a move to Benfica would be better for him. So it was Portugal and it turned out to be a good call. Benfica experienced a successful spell, with titles, European football and Jiménez was able to play almost all matches.
Jiménez matured as a player. He was no longer the young leader who lived just to score. He now put in contact all over the field, often starting attacks from the center of the field and being on the other end to finish them. At 6’3 ″, he could impose his presence in the penalty area, but he was not a type of old -fashioned thug. He combined his size with agility and timing, often running between defenders to guide the ball in the net. After playing 120 games and scored 31 goals in his three years with Benfica, Raúl Jiménez was ready to test himself on a bigger scene. It had been delayed, but he finally came to England.
The club he joined was Wolverhampton Wanderers. After decades of mediocrity, they were back in the elite and had found an exceptional young manager in Nuno Espírito Santo. Nuno understood that to succeed in the Premier League, Raúl would need regular playing time, something he had not been given at Atlético. Nuno also knew how hard the Mexican worked in training and how it would be a positive influence in the locker room. It was a perfect match.
In his first season, Jiménez was the top scorer in Wolverhampton with 17 goals. A loan agreement has become a permanent transfer and the following year proved to be even better, bringing 55 games, 27 goals and two of the club’s player’s prices. This season was strongly affected by COVID-19, the league being suspended in March and then taking over the empty stadiums. For the Jiménez family, there was the distraction and excitement of a first child and Raúl ran from the locker room to the hospital to be there for the birth of her daughter, Arya.
Covid-19 was finally going to pass and the newly extended family was happy in their English life, becoming as installed as any professional football player. His popularity with fans has helped to forge a link between his Mexican house and his new Wolverhampton house, with Jiménez putting a golden struggle mask to celebrate a goal, while fans made up an emblematic song for him:
“Here is something that the wolves want you to know, the best in the world and it comes from Mexico, our new number, will give it the ball and it will mark each time, if Señor, give the ball to Raúl and it will mark …”
Unfortunately, on November 29, 2020, during his third season with the club, Jiménez’s career took an unpredictable and scary course.
The Wolves played Arsenal and Jiménez had taken his usual position at the front of the 6 yards box for a corner when the defender of Arsenal David Luiz came to crush him. While the player’s skulls collided, the crack vibrated in the empty stadium – A moment that still haunts people who were there. Jiménez is lying on the ground, the lack of movement, his eyes closed, the blood flowing from his nose, all signs that it was serious. That night, Jiménez underwent a series of operations for a fractured skull and bleeding on the brain.
The next day, the initial crisis was over and he was awake and was able to have a telephone call with his family. However, he faced a long and uncertain road towards complete recovery.
The fear of all lasting damage is upset, but there is a difference between leading a normal life and being able to resist the mental and physical challenges of a professional sportsman. At this point, Jiménez himself was perhaps the only person who thought he would play again. There was a long layout, a long period of training by itself and then a touch of comedy. There was a time when he could start participating in five training games, but the other players were subject to strict instructions according to which there should not be physical contact, so the team that Jiménez has always won these surprisingly competitive training games.
Jiménez recovered and returned to the team, but things had changed to the club. The beloved nuno had continued and there was a different atmosphere around the stadium. With a year remaining on his contract, and Jiménez is not in the plans of the new manager Julen Lopetegui, there was a surprise offer from London.
Fulham Aleksandar Mitrović wanted to go to the new Saudi high -speed league and the club now needed a replacement striker. It was unlikely that Fulham saw a 33 -year -old man who had not yet shown that he was back to his best injury as a permanent solution to their problem, but he could provide temporary coverage. Jiménez, still noted for his commitment to train, was as fit as any of the team’s young people and as enthusiastic as ever.
During its first season, a team that had resembled relegation candidates finished a comfortable 13th and Jiménez obtained a regular starting point on the side. This year, Fulham is once again comfortably mid-table and better still, has reached the FA Cup quarter-finals, the first England football trophy, with Jiménez calmly marking the first penalty of the brising shooting.
What inheritance will it leave? Although it would not make a list of the 100 biggest players in the world, we would expect it to be included in a volume of the 100 best players in Mexico. And sometimes a player must be measured by the insescurable. His contribution in the locker room, his work on the training field, his popularity with fans, his bravery to come back from the injury, are all the things that do not show in statistics but that the people who knew him will remember.
Raúl Jiménez’s remarkable story is far from over. If Fulham qualifies for European football next season, it will be the next exciting chapter.
Bob Pateman is a historian based in Mexico, a librarian and a long -term lifestyle. He is editor -in -chief of On the magazineHashing International History Magazine.
