MADRID, 21 Jun. (EUROPA PRESS) –
Real Madrid presented Joselu Mato this Tuesday as a new white player and the first summer reinforcement for the offensive line of Carlo Ancelotti’s team, to whom the Galician arrives with the difficult task of making Karim Benzema forget, who left the club from the capital at the end of LaLiga Santander.
Joselu Mato thus returns to what was his home for two seasons (2010/11 and 2011/12) in which he was part of the Real Madrid Castilla squad, making his debut with the first team, with whom he played two games and scored two goals. Now, the international intends to take advantage of the opportunity left by Karim Benzema to be the team’s main offensive reference, just as he has been at Alavés and Espanyol in recent seasons.
The Galician striker returns to Real Madrid at the age of 33 and at the best moment of his sports career. Despite the relegation of RCD Espanyol, he has prevailed in the Zarra Trophy of the season as the top scorer for Spanish in LaLiga, scoring 16 goals, which has also meant his most prolific goal-scoring campaign of his career.
A pure striker who stands out in everything that has to do with scoring. Joselu has been the third top scorer in LaLiga, only behind Lewandowski (23) and Benzema (19). However, if the expected goals are taken into account, Joselu has scored 1.4 more goals than the advanced statistics gave him, data higher than those of the Pole and the French, both with fewer goals at the end of the year than the expected by this same metric.
Regarding the number of attempts that the new Real Madrid striker has made, Joselu has shot 92 times (the fourth most times he has done so in LaLiga Santander), 38 of them between the three sticks. Some data that result in a shot conversion of 17.4 percent, higher than that of players like Lewandowski (17%), the Getafe striker Enes Ünal (15.9%) or the Celta attacker Iago Aspas (15 ,4%).
But the Spanish striker is much more than a scorer. The Galician is the second LaLiga striker who has won the most duels (277), being the one with the highest percentage of success in them (57%). He is also the second striker who has won the most aerial duels (174) just behind the Majorcan Vedat Muriqi (199), yes, with the best success rate of the competition’s strikers (62%).
In short, a pure center forward who arrives at Real Madrid to make the second top scorer in the club’s history, Karim Benzema, forget and close the circle that began on May 21, 2011 when he made his debut against UD Almería. Now, much more mature and with the endorsement of his numbers, he will want to be the ‘9’ for Real Madrid.
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Multimedia content (graphics):
Joselu Mato’s goals per season since his debut (5 Major Leagues)
https://www.epdata.es/goles-temporada-joselu-mato-debut-grandes-ligas/f2a4f602-6e8e-4ef9-8a01-3caaa1fa376e