Fulham FC, are a soccer club based in West London. With their ground overlooking the River Thames, Fulham have a history that dates to 1879. That makes 146 years of competitive football that has seen them win exactly no major trophies. Indeed, for many years their annual fight against relegation from the top level of English football was an exciting feature of every season.

As the 2024-25 season moves into its final weeks Fulham are in 10th position, just five points away from securing European football next season and are one of the last eight clubs left in the FA Cup. One player enjoying this season is Mexico’s Raúl Alonso Jiménez who is now, at thirty-three, in the veteran stage of his career.

It was almost 14 years ago when a young Jiménez made his first team debut at Mexico City’s Club America in 2011. Numerous honors quickly followed, including a gold medal at the London Olympics in 2012 and a domestic title with America in 2013. In October that year, with their World Cup bid faltering, Mexico desperately needed to beat Panama when the two met in their qualifying group.

With less than ten minutes still to play the score stood at 1-1. Jiménez collected the ball in midfield, swept it to the right wing and raced forward. There he was, in the center of the penalty area, to collect the return pass. The ball found him with his back to the goal, which seemed to leave him few options. Jiménez flicked the ball up and produced an acrobatic bicycle kick to score. Mexico were headed for the World Cup and Jiménez’s little piece of magic went viral on the internet.

Having played at the 2014 World Cup, Jiménez was rapidly outgrowing the Mexican league and by the following season was with Spanish side Atlético Madrid. It seemed a great move. Atlético were buzzing under manager Diego Simeone and had just won the Spanish league, while their counter-attacking style should have suited Jiménez. Madrid, however, didn’t work out. There was too much competition for a player just 23 years of age and not yet with the experience of playing in a top-class European league. One goal in 28 games was a poor return for ten million euros and it was time to move on.

In August 2015 Jiménez seemed set to join Premier League side West Ham United but he failed to show up for his medical exam. The official account is that he had missed his flight to London after oversleeping. More likely he was persuaded by his manager, Jorge Mendes, that a move to Benfica would be better for him. So Portugal it was and that proved a good call. Benfica enjoyed a successful spell, with titles, European football and Jiménez got to play virtually every game.

Jiménez was maturing as a player. He was no longer the young frontman who lived just to score. He was now putting in touches all over the field, often starting attacks from the center of the pitch and being at the other end to finish them. At 6’3″ he could impose his presence in the penalty area, but he was not an old-fashioned thug type. He combined his size with agility and timing, often racing between defenders to guide the ball into the net.  After playing 120 games, and scoring 31 goals during his three years with Benfica, Raúl Jiménez was ready to test himself on a bigger stage. It had been delayed, but he was finally coming to England.

The club he joined was Wolverhampton Wanderers. After decades of mediocrity they were back in the top flight and had found an outstanding young manager in Nuno Espírito Santo. Nuno understood that to achieve success in the Premier League, Raúl would need regular playing time, something he had not been given at Atlético. Nuno also knew how hard the Mexican worked in training and how he would be a positive influence in the dressing room. It was a perfect match.

In his first season, Jiménez was Wolverhampton’s top scorer with 17 goals. A loan deal became a permanent transfer and the following year proved even better, bringing 55 games, 27 goals and two of the club’s Player of the Season Awards. This season was heavily impacted by Covid-19, with the league being suspended in March and then resuming in front of empty stadiums. For the Jiménez family, there was the distraction and excitement of a first child and Raúl raced from the changing room to the hospital to be there for the birth of his daughter, Arya.

Covid-19 would eventually pass and the newly expanded family were happy in their English lives, becoming as settled as any professional football player can ever be. His popularity with fans helped to forge a link between his Mexican home and his new home of Wolverhampton, with Jiménez putting on a golden wrestling mask to celebrate a goal, while fans composed an iconic song for him:

“Here’s something that the Wolves want you to know, the best in the world and he comes from Mexico, our number nine, give him the ball and he’ll score every time, Si señor, Give the ball to Raúl and he will score…”

Unfortuantely, on 29th November 2020, during his third season with the club, Jiménez’s career took an unforeseeable and frightening course.

Wolves were playing Arsenal and Jiménez had taken up his usual position at the front of the 6-yard box for a corner when Arsenal defender David Luiz came crushing into him. As the player’s skulls collided, the crack vibrated through the empty stadium — a moment that still haunts people who were there. Jiménez lay on the ground, the lack of movement, his closed eyes, the blood trickling from his nose, all signs that this was serious. That night Jiménez underwent a series of operations for a fractured skull, and bleeding on the brain.

By the next day the initial crisis was over and he was awake and able to have a phone call with his family. However, he faced a long and uncertain road to full recovery.

The fear of any lasting damage faded, but there is a difference between leading a normal life and being able to stand up to the mental and physical challenges of a professional sportsman. At this stage, Jiménez himself was perhaps the only person who thought that he would play again. There was a long layoff, a long spell of training on his own and then a touch of comedy. There came a point when he could start to take part in five-a-side in training matches, but the other players were under strict instructions that there was to be no physical contact, so the team that Jiménez was on always won these surprisingly competitive training games.

Jiménez recovered and returned to the team, but things had changed at the club. The beloved Nuno had moved on and there was a different atmosphere around the stadium. With a year left on his contract, and Jiménez not in the plans of new manager Julen Lopetegui, there came a surprise offer from London.

Fulham’s Aleksandar Mitrović was keen to go to the new, high-spending Saudi Arabian league and the club now needed a replacement striker. It was unlikely that Fulham saw a 33-year-old who had yet to show he was back to his pre-injury best as a permanent solution to their problem, but he might provide some temporary cover. Jiménez, always noted for his commitment to training, was as fit as any of the youngsters in the squad and as enthusiastic as ever.

In his first season, a team that had looked like relegation candidates finished a comfortable 13th and Jiménez was getting a regular starting place in the side. This year Fulham are once again comfortably mid-table and better still, have reached the quarter-finals of the FA Cup, England’s premier footballing trophy, with Jiménez calmly scoring the first penalty of the tie-breaking shootout.

What legacy will he leave? While he would not make a list of the World’s Greatest 100 players, we would expect him to be included in a volume of Mexico’s Best 100 players. And sometimes a player has to be measured by the unmeasurable. His contribution in the changing room, his work on the training pitch, his popularity with the fans, his bravery at coming back from injury, are all things that do not show in the statistics but that the people who knew him will remember.

The remarkable story of Raúl Jiménez is far from over. If Fulham qualifies for European football next season that will be the next exciting chapter.

Bob Pateman is a Mexico-based historian, librarian and a life term hasher. He is editor of On On Magazine, the international history magazine of hashing.