James Rodriguez returned to top-level club football by joining La Liga’s Rayo Vallecano last month, but we’ve had to wait a while to see him in action.
Rodriguez finally made his Rayo debut with seven minutes off the bench in last Monday’s 3-1 victory over Osasuna at the Estadio Vallecas, before featuring for 20 minutes in Sunday’s 1-1 draw (again at home) to neighbours Atletico Madrid.
It is a slightly unusual situation given he was named player of the tournament at the Copa America, having guided Colombia to the July 14 final against Argentina.
But to many, Rodriguez also seemed an unlikely signing for Rayo — an unfashionable team that narrowly avoided relegation to Spain’s second division last year, and whose 2024-25 salary cap of €45million (£37.5m; $50m) is a fraction of the €755m his former club Real Madrid can spend.
There were always questions about the move. Would Rodriguez, now 33, be able to maintain the motivation and energy that fuels his international form through the week-to-week grind? And could a club with all the colour and contradictions of Rayo get the best out of a star who showed this summer that he still has the quality to be decisive at the highest level?
Over the past week, The Athletic visited Vallecas, in the south of the Spanish capital, to find some answers.
At first glance, Rayo Vallecano are not where you’d expect the Copa America’s Golden Ball winner to end up.
Rayo’s highest ever La Liga finish was eighth in 2012-13. Their only season in European competition came in 2000-01. Their biggest title was the 2017-18 Segunda Division. Their 14,700-capacity Estadio Vallecas has plenty of old-school charm, but badly needs modernisation.
Yet they do have something of a history of big names — former England winger Laurie Cunningham played here in the 1980s, as well as Austrian striker Toni Polster and Mexican forward Hugo Sanchez in the 1990s. Current president Raul Martin Presa has continued that tradition — Rodriguez’s fellow Colombian Radamel Falcao played here for the past three seasons.
Rodriguez’s phenomenal Copa America, where he provided six assists and scored one goal as Colombia made the final (they lost 1-0 to Argentina) might usually have put him out of Rayo’s reach.
However, this summer he left Brazilian club Sao Paulo just one year into his two-year contract, having scored twice and made four assists in 22 games. It followed similarly underwhelming stints with Everton in the Premier League (2020-21) Greek club Olympiacos (2022-2023) and Al Rayyan in Qatar (2021-22) — all of which came after leaving Real Madrid. Initial excitement at the arrival of a big star kept dissipating when performances did not match his big wages.
Such apparent drift at club level made it more difficult than Rodriguez expected to find a new team this summer. Press speculation linked him with Valencia, Lazio, FC Porto, Villarreal, Bayer Leverkusen, Napoli, Real Betis, River Plate and Celta Vigo. The Getafe president, Angel Torres, claimed to have turned down the opportunity to sign him.
It meant Rodriguez had to be realistic with his salary demands. Sources with close knowledge of the subject — who, like all those cited here, preferred to speak anonymously to protect their position — say centre-forward Raul de Tomas remains Rayo’s best-paid player. Nevertheless when Rodriguez joined, just before the transfer window shut, president Martin Presa proudly compared his arrival to Napoli signing Diego Maradona in 1984. Older Rayo fans will remember Diego’s brother Hugo as one of their less successful signings in the late 1980s.
But many at Rayo have been looking to the past to imagine what Rodriguez might be capable of. Six goals at World Cup 2014, including superb strikes against Japan and Uruguay (which won goal of the tournament), sealed a ‘galactico’ move to Real Madrid from Monaco. His first season at the Bernabeu brought an impressive 17 goals and 18 assists in 46 games. Overall he scored 37 goals in 125 matches for Madrid, winning two La Liga titles and the Champions League twice.
🇨🇴🎩 Each angle better than the last @FCFSeleccionCol | @jamesdrodriguez | #WorldCup pic.twitter.com/QbTJcibIr9
— FIFA World Cup (@FIFAWorldCup) February 23, 2022
That may seem a long time ago now, but Rodriguez also impressed when Colombia beat Spain 1-0 in a friendly in London in March. This September, after joining Rayo, he scored one and assisted another in a 2-1 World Cup 2026 qualifier victory over Argentina.
“Rayo’s president likes to sign players with big CVs and careers, known on an international level,” ex-Rayo goalkeeper Alberto Garcia tells The Athletic.
“Every summer he looks for players of this profile who, for different circumstances, Rayo has the possibility to tempt. James is not arriving at a low moment; just the opposite. It looks like he has started to recover the James who reached such a high level, and wants to get back to the elite.”
Through recent weeks, Rayo coach Inigo Perez has repeatedly said how happy he is to have Rodriguez in his squad, while recalling that he missed out completely on pre-season training. Rodriguez watched Rayo’s first two games after arrival from the stands, then went on international duty in early September.
When he finally made his debut against Osasuna last Monday, it was with 87 minutes already played and the team 2-1 up. Earlier in the game, when they needed a creative boost at 1-1, longer-serving squad members Isi Palazon and Jorge de Frutos were sent on first.
“I’ve said many times I’m delighted to have James here, but he’s just one more Rayo Vallecano player,” manager Perez said after the team won that game 3-1. “I make changes based on what I think the team needs, not for other motives.”
Garcia says Perez, 36 and in his first job as a manager, is showing intelligence in managing the situation.
“Inigo Perez is a young coach, but he has shown a lot of coherence and personality with his decisions,” he says. “He heavily values day-to-day work, training and performance when selecting his starting XI and which subs to use.”
There are some similarities with Falcao’s arrival at Rayo three summers back, when Perez was assistant to then-manager Andoni Iraola, who is now in charge at Bournemouth. The centre-forward scored four goals in his first six games, making Vallecas rock with a superb winning goal against Barcelona in October 2021.
During his second season, Falcao, now 38 and playing back in his native Colombia with Millonarios, accepted a supporting role, playing occasionally off the bench. The question is whether Rodriguez — younger and after such a starring role at the Copa America — will be happy to be ‘just another player’ at Rayo.
With Colombia, Rodriguez has thrived as a central creator, given a freedom from tactical restraints that does not often exist these days at club level. There is, however, a feeling that Rayo’s 4-2-3-1 system, established by Iraola, offers him an ideal playmaking role.
“James will have two holding midfielders behind, two clear wingers (either side), and a hard-working centre-forward ahead,” says Carlos Sanchez Blas, who has covered Rayo for Spanish radio for over a decade. “It’s just what he would want.”
Within Rayo’s squad there is excitement at a player of Rodriguez’s quality arriving. Sources close to the dressing room say team-mates are prepared to make extra sacrifices if his star factor helps the team win games — similar to how Argentina’s hard work provides the platform for Messi to shine. However, Rodriguez will still need to buy into the meritocratic ethos in Vallecas, where commitment to the cause is required on and off the pitch.
Everyone involved is well aware of Rodriguez’s past issues at different clubs over his career. At Madrid, he was frozen out in the end by coach Zinedine Zidane. At Everton, he did not like being ordered to run more by Rafa Benitez. He talked publicly of wanting to leave Al Rayyan just one year into a three-year contract, then complained about team-mates using their hands to eat after a mutual termination was agreed. At Sao Paulo, he spoke of rough treatment from rival defenders. His commitment to each cause appeared to wane when things did not go his way.
“Rayo’s current dressing room is very healthy,” says Sanchez Blas. “Oscar Trejo, Oscar Valentin, Isi (Palazon) and Alvaro Garcia are good guys, good team-mates who think about the collective. If James does not adapt, it is because he does not, or cannot — not because he encounters opposition.”
Spain’s capital has five La Liga top-flight clubs battling for attention. Real Madrid presented a new galactico, Kylian Mbappe, to 80,000 ecstatic fans at the Bernabeu in July. Atletico Madrid’s new signings, Julian Alvarez and Conor Gallagher, were welcomed with a rock concert at the Estadio Metropolitano in August.
Getafe made a huge deal last summer of signing Mason Greenwood. Leganes proudly showed off Ivory Coast international Sebastian Haller at a press conference when he arrived this summer.
Rodriguez is arguably a bigger name than any of the above, except Mbappe. The player himself has been promoting a Netflix series about his life on social media, but there has been no formal presentation or media event at Rayo. His one interview so far has been for their jersey sponsor. He said he returned to Spain as he likes the football in La Liga, and predicted a top-six finish for his new team.
Rayo has a special connection with its blue-collar neighbourhood of Vallecas, and many of the team’s fans lean left politically. Visiting the stadium, it is immediately clear how the Rayo hierarchy unwittingly echo the anti-capitalist ethos of its ultras. The tiny club shop has some ‘James’ jerseys on sale, at €90 each. But there is no extra merchandise, or even signage outside, reflecting the arrival of such a marketable star.
“James is one of the six biggest media stars in La Liga,” says Sanchez Blas. “But Rayo don’t know how to take advantage of that. They need to launch promotions to attract Colombian fans to the stadium. Or have a day with James signing jerseys in the club shop. But Rayo are so lost in those terms.”
Rayo are the only La Liga club that does not sell match tickets online. Anybody interested has to buy them in person at the stadium. Tickets for Atletico’s visit on Sunday went on sale at 11am on Friday morning. An hour before kick-off, just as Rayo announced Rodriguez was on the bench again, tickets were still being sold through the windows.
A working class hero is something to be, rumoured Everton fan John Lennon once sang. Rodriguez did not earn that status during his time at Goodison Park, nor at anywhere else he has played over the past decade since that glorious World Cup goal in 2014, across six countries and three continents.
Time will tell whether he embraces what Rayo means, as Falcao did, and shows his Colombia form at club level. Against Osasuna, he made some neat touches during his seven minutes on the pitch. Versus Atletico, Perez heavily rotated his team, but Rodriguez was again a sub. Palazon started in attacking midfield and scored the opening goal by finishing off a neat passing move.
Rodriguez came on with 20 minutes remaining and with the score already at 1-1, to loud applause from the stands. He tried one through ball for fellow sub Sergio Camello, and hit a skidding 20-yard shot straight at Atletico keeper Jan Oblak. It was difficult to influence a scrappy, high-intensity game. But the draw against their much wealthier neighbours was greeted with big cheers from the Vallecas crowd at the final whistle.
“Rayo fans are happy to have a player of James’s level, and for the visibility it gives the club,” Garcia says. “But Vallecas is a place where every individual is treated the same. Rayo fans will ask James, first of all, for commitment, to play for the team, identify with the humble neighbourhood the club forms part of.
“Then, when he is fully fit, he can be the player who makes the difference.”
(Top photo: Florencia Tan Jun/Getty Images)
