Will Raúl Ever Wear Red Again?

Hassan Chamas

His name is synonymous with records: 5 Spanish leagues, most recently in 2007, 3 Champions Leagues, 3 Spanish Super Cups, 2 Intercontinental Cups, and a European Super Cup.

On an individual level, he was La Liga’s top scorer in 1999 and 2001, UEFA’s best forward in 2000, 2001, and 2002, The Champions League’s top scorer in 2000 and 2001, and he holds the record for the most goals and appearances for a Spanish national team player, with 44 goals in 102 caps. He is La Liga’s top active goalscorer, as well as the Champions League all time goalscorer with 63 goals.

And the list goes on and on. When you think of it, how can such a player not hold the Ballon d’Or for Europe’s elite player? How can he not be included in the Spanish national team? Well, it’s very simple: All the data presented earlier are what they are: Records.

It has been too long since Raul was the record-breaking forward that we used to know. More simply, since 2003 until this season, Raul has only been a shadow of his former self. In 2004, he managed to score only 11 goals in the league. The following three seasons were the most awful for him as a professional, where he managed only 21 goals in three campaigns. Not a good record for a person that was said to embody all that was good about Spanish football, right next to past great players such as Ricardo Zamora, Alfredo di Stefano, and Pep Guardiola.

Despite his significant drop in form, and maybe due to pressure that the media applied on Seleccion coach Luis Aragones, he was, in the end, part of the traveling team that disputed the 2006 World Cup in Germany.

After the World Cup ended, rumors surfaced in September through the media that Raul, along with some veterans in the Spanish team such as his Real Madrid teammate Michel Salgado, questioned the coach’s tactics and treated him with a lack of respect. Consequence: Aragones dropped Raul from the national team for the first time since…well since never. And, despite numerous shouts for him to get back in Luis Aragones’ team, the former Atletico man was not very impressed.

Renaissance

After Bernd Schuster took over the hot seat at the Santiago Bernabeu, skeptics started to ponder just what will the role of Raul be in the German’s “attack-minded” team, and how efficient he will be to the team in their quest to be back-to-back Liga champions. With Schuster employing him closer to the six-yard box, Raul has relaunched his club career this season by being Real Madrid’s top scorer with 15 goals in the league so far, pointing to his name after each strike as if to say “I’m not dead yet”. And, with 9 games remaining, it will be hard not to see him surpass the 20-goal barrier.

 

Will it be enough?

Even though in a press conference last month coach Luis Aragones stated that the door for a national team return is not closed to Raul, the Real Madrid skipper has virtually a slim chance, if not any, of making the squad that will play Euro 2008 in Austria and Switzerland this summer, for the simple fact that, good performance or bad, Aragones is simply not on good terms with Raul. And, in the end, it is the coach’s decision on who to play, and who should sit on the bench, let alone be left out of the squad completely.

One of the arguments that Luis Aragones has used while defending his decision to omit Raul was that there are simply better players for him to select. And with Spain recently beating Italy (The self-proclaimed “world’s best defence”), and using a single striker in their newly adopted 4-1-4-1 formation (less strikers needed), Aragones can fight-off his critics and stick to the choice of strikers at his disposal. But, in all fairness, are they better than Raul?

One of the most obvious requisites (if not the only requisite) to judge whether a striker is good or not, is simply the number of goals he scores. This is exactly what Madrid’s Angel has been doing all this season. He is, along with Mallorca’s new sensation Dani Guiza, La Liga’s top Spanish striker this term. And with David Villa (albeit the Valencia man being guaranteed a place in this summer’s European Championship squad) suffering a noticeable dip in form, Raul is the best striker Spain has at the moment, right after Fernando Torres, who simply is on sensational form for Liverpool in his first season in the English Premier League.

Luis Aragones might have been satisfied with his team beating World Champions Italy on Wednesday night, and with a less attacking formation, meaning fewer places available for strikers, the odds are not in favour of Raul making a Furia Roja comeback anytime soon. But even so, any team will have at least 4 strikers at their disposal, and with two places already booked for Torres and Villa, Luis Aragones must put his heart aside and judge the situation with his head.