James Rodriguez at Real Madrid- Better Than Given Credit For

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James Rodriguez the Columbian winger has moved to the English Premier League after a loan spell with Bayern Munich. After finally being rekindled with Carlo Ancelotti, Rodriguez seems to be finally enjoying his football at Everton. He will always be remembered for that world cup goal against Uruguay that later won the Puskas award for best goal fo the year.

A great performance in the world cup earned him a move to the Spanish giants Real Madrid. He remained with the Los Blancos for 4 years and although he wasn’t the best player in that time as many would have wished him to be, he was not too bad either. The narrative around him is that his time at Real Madrid was a total failure, the stats, however, paint a very different picture altogether.

In his first season at Real Madrid, he played 29 games and scored 13 goals along with 13 assists. For his incredible performance, he was awarded the Best Midfielder in LaLiga. He won the award In a league that had Xavi, Iniesta, Rakitic, Modric and Isco. Just think about that! His second season was not as impressive as the first one due to a series of injuries. He made 26 appearances with 17 starts, scoring 7 times and assisting another 8.

His third season was hampered by Zidane’s decision to give him less game time than usual. He played 22 matches with just 13 starts in which he scored 8 goals and assisted another 6. His stats, however, were still incredible proven by his SofaScore rating of 7.36 just behind Kross (7.68) and Ronaldo (7.54). In 2019-20 season he played just 8 games of which he started 5. He scored just 1 goal and assisted 1, his poorest season in all. This was a season to forget.

Great Stats Nonetheless

Altogether, however, his Goals+assists tally of 55 in 62 starts is nothing sort of incredible. He was the 4th highest goalscorer for Real Madrid behind the trio of Bale, Benzema and Cristiano. He also had the 4th highest assists in the league and 2nd in Real Madrid after Kroos. All this when he participated in just 55% of total League games in that period.

James Rodriguez is a phenomenal player and his stint at Real Madrid was nothing sort of amazing. He was underrated and underused for the most part and that hampered his career but in no way was he a flop at Real. Now that he is under a coach that appreciates his talent, only good things can come out of it.

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