After being injured for most of the 2019-20 season, Real Madrid have finally decided to offload the 2014 World Cup Golden boot winner, James Rodriguez after six seasons and a loan spell in Germany.
After the 2014 FIFA World Cup, Rodriguez’s out of the world performances in the tournament made him the hottest young property in Europe. It did not take long for Florentino Perez to swoop him up and bring him to Real Madrid. The Colombian had scored 6 goals in 5 appearances, single-handedly bringing his country to the quarter-finals where they were defeated by hosts Brazil.
Rodriguez also won the Puskas Award in the process for his goal against Uruguay. All of this validated his enormous price tag of 90 million euros, making him the fourth most expensive player in the world at that time, behind the elite bunch of Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Luis Suarez.
James Rodriguez was given the famous No.10 shirt in his first season at Real Madrid. His first season in Madrid was spectacular where he won the best midfielder award in La Liga and was included in the team of the season. Sadly, for Colombian, it was only downhill from there on. Frequent injuries and lousy form restricted his playing time at Madrid, and Isco replaced him.
In 2017, James signed a 2-year loan deal with Bundesliga champions Bayern Munich where he was reunited with former Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti who played a significant role in convincing him to come to Munich. After a slow start in the Bundesliga, Rodriguez was able to recapture his best form and played an instrumental part in Bayern’s Bundesliga winning squad. Although Rodriguez played 43 games for Bayern over 2 years, injuries still proved to be the Colombian’s biggest problem.
Since returning from Bayern Munich, James hasn’t been able to perform as well as Zinedine Zidane would have liked. The midfielder made just 8 appearances in the league, mostly coming off the bench while Madrid went on to clinch the title from a struggling FC Barcelona.
After taking charge of Everton, Carlo Ancelotti has been given a huge transfer budget. The club has made its intentions clear – qualifying for European Football and winning trophies. Fans have been ecstatic with the move and Ancelotti himself has taken it upon himself to bring the club to winning ways.
Signing Rodriguez will prove to be a significant risk for Everton. He will cost a lot of money, and his wages will be enormous. He is also extremely injury prone, and it would not make a lot of sense to pay so much for a player who will be at the physio’s office for the most of the season. Although Ancelotti does know to bring the best out of the player and at 29 years old, Rodriguez does have a lot left in him.
