Real Madrid loanee is playing his best football but spells in cold and snowy England provided tranquility needed for the top level
Real Madrid’s No 14 has a familiar face and a very familiar name. He does according to Jude Bellingham, anyway. Bellingham calls him Peter Crouch, in his passport he’s José Luis Mato Sanmartín, and his shirt reads Joselu. Yes, that Joselu. “That’s me,” he says smiling as he settles into a sofa at the Spanish national team training base: the former Stoke and Newcastle striker who has a better goals ratio than anyone in the selección and is banging them in for the biggest club on the planet.
Already the scorer of more in one season in Madrid than the three he had in the Premier League, Joselu has experienced a long journey and says he is better for it, though it might not always have felt that way. He is living moments now that are more special for those lived before, his success an example of perseverance, never losing hope. Besides, he insists, England was fun.
