Koke has earned in his own right to be considered an institution at Atlético. The midfielder he is the current captain of the rojiblanco club after playing his tenth season since he debuted with the first mattress team on September 19, 2009 against Barcelona at the Camp Nou (defeat by 5-2). That day he played 23 minutes and, since that first duel, has not stopped adding meetings, rising slowly but surely on the list of the players who have played the most games in the history of the entity.
Today, the vallecano has played a total of 455 duels with the elastic mattress, distributed in 316 in LaLiga, 95 in European competitions (64 in the Champions League, 29 in the Europa League and two in the European Super Cup), 39 in the Copa del Rey and five in the Spanish Super Cup. During this time He has scored 44 goals and distributed 103 assists. His achievements include seven titles: one League (2013-14), one Copa del Rey (2012-13), one Spanish Super Cup (2013-14), two Europa Leagues (2011-12 and 2017-18) and two European Super Cups (2011-12 and 2017-18).
This year Koke has played 40 matches between all competitions (31 of LaLiga, 8 of the Copa del Rey and one of the Spanish Super Cup held in Arabia) in which He has converted four goals and has given six goals to his teammates. Actually He is the fifth player with the most games at the club, but if you participate for a minute in the match against Real Sociedad, will climb one position and match another charismatic player for the club, Juan Carlos Aguilera, who wore the mattress shirt for 15 seasons in two different stages (in between he played three courses in Tenerife).
Koke would only have three authentic legends of the club ahead of him: Collar (470 games), Tomás Reñones (483) and Adelardo, who leads the table (553). It should be noted that, although LaLiga will conclude with the visit of the Royal Society to the Wanda Metropolitano, Atlético will not yet close the season, since, in just over three weeks, Simeone's men will compete again in the Champions League to play the quarter-final tie against Leipzig on August 13 at 9:00 p.m.. This represents an opportunity for the rojiblanco captain to continue adding matches and getting closer to the podium.
Given his age (28 years) and the scarcity of serious injuries who has suffered in his professional career, Koke has a good chance of rising to the top of the table of players with more participations with the rojiblanca jersey, unseating the mythical Adelardo. If you keep your current match progression (an average of 40 a year), next season it will reach both Collar and Tomás, installing itself in the second position of the ranking. From there, in about a season and a half more, could become the player who has worn the coats of the mattress team the most times.