Every March 23 is San Tamudo in Espanyol. Paco Flores decided in 1997 that the young striker from Santa Coloma who played in the reserve team would have his chance in the First Division in Alicante against Hércules. It was a parakeet team in trouble, fighting not to go down. And Tamudo scored the first of the 129 goals he scored in the league with the parakeet team, a Vaseline that he defines “instinctive“, because “you have to decide and execute quickly”. The goal was in his blood.
The striker, now an assistant to the sports management, gave an interview for Espanyol’s official Twitch in which he reviewed those moments. “It was a dream debut. They called me to be with my idols. Everything that happened afterwards was unthinkable,” said. But the top Catalan scorer, whose story has a moral, emphasized the other side, the toughest, who helped him to toughen up. “Not everything was round, there were also bad moments.”
Tamudo refers to what happened the campaign after, when the footballer had to go on loan to Alavés where he barely played. Or the following year (98-99), again with a ticket to Lleida where he enjoyed more opportunities, scored goals and won the return to Espanyol after four months. “Many times people do well, but then everything changes; you have to keep going. They shouldn’t throw in the towel, they should trust in it and in their possibilities”reasons the one from Santa Coloma.
Raised in a humble family in a town that welcomed the immigration of the rest of Spain in the 60s and 70s, the striker remembers playing with his brother Paco at home (“the goals were the doors”) and on the street (“we sneaked in schools”) until he arrived at Milan de Santa Coloma where he shone, scored goals and earned his transfer to Espanyol at the age of 14 in exchange for a sack of balls. “Casanova called me,” he warns. “He had to go to the cheap houses in the Free Zone, it took an hour to get there,” she recalls.
Raul Tamudo.
FELIX ORDONEZ AUSIN
His best goals and the initial tsunami
From the push that Paco Flores gave him to push Espanyol towards sporting stability, thanks to his goals, and also towards dreams, such as the Copa del Rey in 2000, 2006 and the UEFA final in 2007. “Those years were sensational, I had a lot of fun playing football”. The international striker is left with five goals, the ones he scored against Celta and Sevilla, in two great individual actions; that of the 2000 Copa del Rey to Toni Jiménez (“murri Tamudo”), a Vaseline to Iker Casillas in Montjuïc and, of course, the Tamudazo against Barcelona: “he was known throughout the world”.
Looking back, Tamudo recalls what came after his first successes (“A tsunami of emotions and sensations came over me, people who knew me, others who didn’t. Thanks to those around me I managed to keep my feet on the ground”) and what is to come in the club that “gave me everything”, because “the social mass has always expressed its love for me, and it is what I keep”.