European dreams coming true for Real Madrid's Joselu and opponents Union Berlin

Veteran striker finally gets chance to play Champions League football at the Bernabeu against competition newcomers

Real Madrid forward Joselu celebrates scoring his team's second goal against Real Sociedad at the Santiago Bernabeu. AFP

On the last day of the 2010/11 season, Joselu Mato had his breakthrough moment. Or so he imagined. He had recently turned 21, had devoted his teenaged years to climbing the ladder of professional football and to making it in the hardest of positions. He wanted to be a striker at the most decorated club in the history of the European game.

Joselu, who was born in Germany because his parents were working there, did most of his growing up in Galicia, Spain’s western corner. He duly enrolled at local club Celta Vigo. He made a good enough impression that Real Madrid scouted and signed him as a prospect, putting him into the upper levels of their youth academy.

When Jose Mourinho joined Madrid as head coach in 2010, he was handed a positive report on Joselu’s performances for Real Madrid B. Mourinho noted it but when he sought stronger back-up at centre-forward to Gonzalo Higuain and Karim Benzema, who led the queue to play inside Cristiano Ronaldo, he went for experience rather than internal promotion, signing Emmanuel Abdebayor in that winter’s transfer window.

Mourinho, Adebayor, Higuain. Names from long ago in Madrid terms. And Joselu was just a tiny footnote from that 2010-11 season. He made his first team debut on its last weekend, a substitute brought on for Benzema with six minutes left against Almeria. Madrid were winning 7-1. Ronaldo promptly steered a fine, floated cross in his direction. Joselu finished confidently: 8-1.

He would score on his Copa del Rey debut, the following December, even more rapidly. Off the bench against lower-division Ponferradina in the 78th minute, again replacing Benzema, he almost immediately struck the fourth goal of a 5-1 victory.

And that was the last the first-team saw of Joselu as a Real Madrid employee - for almost 12 years.

Union Berlin players celebrate scoring against Wolfsburg. AFP

He is now 33 and, after a zig-zag journey back to Germany, to Stoke City and Newcastle United - before Newcastle came into big money - in England, and to successive relegations with Spanish clubs Alaves and Espanyol in the last two seasons, he finally, on Wednesday, readies himself for a Champions League debut in Madrid’s all-white against Union Berlin at the Bernabeu.

It’s been quite a wait. The deal that brought him back is a loan, from Espanyol, where his 16 goals in 2022/23 were the best argument for the club’s vain hope of staying up and also persuaded Spain’s head coach, Luis de la Fuente to grant Joselu his first international caps, deep into his 30s.

He’s been as good for Spain as he was as a 21-year-old debutant for Madrid: Two goals in his nine minutes off the bench on his debut against Norway; two more in his five caps since.

As for Madrid, who hired him to partially replace Benzema when the Frenchman moved to Al Ittihad in the summer, they have been delighted to see Joselu’s instant impact is still part of his portfolio. His three starts so far in his second spell have yielded two goals and an assist. “He’s a guarantee for us in attack,” beamed Carlo Ancelotti, the Madrid head coach. “He’s good with his back to goal and facing goal. He’s strong in the air and he’s clever with crosses.”

A European Cup bow so long delayed will feel very special and Joselu’s perspective, that of the patient stalwart, cannot help but chime with the opponents. If Joselu imagines a dozen years is a long wait, think of Union Berlin.

When Joselu was born in Stuttgart, Union were in a different country, part of the football pyramid in what was then East Germany, a nation counting its last days before German reunification. Nor were they such a big part of the now defunct DDR that they ever qualified for the European Cup; nor enough of a force in unified Germany to have been in the Bundesliga’s top tier when Joselu was earning his living with Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt and Hannover between 2012 and 2015.

Union were only promoted four years ago. Their climb to fourth place last season, earning entry to the Champions League, is quite the fairytale.

Up against a Madrid without Vinicius Junior, Eder Militao and Dani Carvajal because of injury, the debut assignment, novices thrust into the home of European royalty, is perhaps less daunting than it might have been.

“If Union are here it’s because they had such a good year,” said Ancelotti. “They’re new, but we’ve studied them hard, they play with a lot of intensity, and while they don’t have so many star names, they are a real team.” Joselu is no star name, but he never stopped believing he could make it this far.