The rise of José Callejón

José Callejón after scoring against Sevilla.

Whenever Real Madrid have re-signed Castilla graduates, they never really cemented first team places, eventually leading into obscurity. We can look at the examples of Alvaro Arbeloa and Esteban Granero (who both are on the bench more than the field) as proof for this. Hence, Madridistas didn’t expect much of returning Castilla graduate, José Callejón, who operated as a striker/winger from Espanyol for approximately £4.6 million – how he has exceeded expectations!

STATS:

• Callejón has made 22 appearances for Madrid so far this season with a return of 11 goals.

• On average, Callejón has scored a goal every 2 games in all competitions which is quite impressive seeing as he has made most of his appearances coming off the bench.

• At one point this season, Callejón had the best minutes per goal ratio too while his current La Liga goals per shot ratio is 0.21 which is more than a goal every 5 shots on average!

• In the Champions League, he is joint top scorer for Madrid with 4 goals despite playing only 3 group stage games.

• In the Champions League, Callejón scored 4 goals from 7 shots while in the Copa Del Rey, he scored 3 goals from 8 shots which prove how deadly and lethal he is in front of goal.

• In La Liga, Callejón has a pass success percentage of 85%.

Callejón was mainly bought as backup for Gonzalo Higuain and Karim Benzema but after his current performances, he might just give them a run for their money in the pecking order. His performances this season have clearly delighted the Bernabeu faithful as Callejón has played with his heart and soul, pointing and saluting the Madrid badge after every goal – he is even starting quite a few key games which he wouldn’t have earlier in the season.

Manager, Jose Mourinho has also heaped praise on Callejón’s recent performances – “Callejon is motivated every minute he plays. I like his attitude very much.“

While Callejón is still uncapped for Spain, Vincent Del Bosque would be a fool not to give him a game given his current performances and the dreadful form of Fernando Torres bundled along with David Villa’s long term injury. It would be really interesting to see how Callejón operates in the current Spain setup but in my opinion, I think he would greatly succeed and if chosen, be a key player for Spain this coming EURO 2012.

While other returning Madrid alumni are either drifting towards irrelevancy or linked with moves away from the club, Callejón is slowly becoming a key player for Los Blancos and who knows, maybe Spain as well in the future. He is certainly here to stay.