Chicharito Now Showing His Expected Quality

Javier ‘Chicharito’ Hernandez has proved an instant hit at Bayer 04 Leverkusen, scoring ten goals in 13 Bundesliga appearances to date, as well as finding the target in the Uefa Champions League and DFB Cup.

Few would have expected the Mexico international to make such a seamless transition to Germany’s top flight, except perhaps for Jose Luis Real Casillas, current director of youth development and former first team head coach at Chicharito’s boyhood club Chivas Guadalajara.

“I was lucky enough to be here when Chicharito arrived at the age of nine,” recalled Real Casillas. “Javier’s dad brought him along for a trial and as soon as we saw him play he immediately passed the test. He wasn’t a striker back then though; he was a No 7, he played on the right wing.”

Real Casillas, a Guadalajara native, speaks fondly of his former student: “He wasn’t a player who did a lot of tricks and he didn’t hold on to the ball for a long time. He would receive it and be very direct, very ‘vertical’. That was a really unusual trait because in Mexico wingers usually try to do tricks but Javier didn’t. He would want a lot of passes behind the defence. He didn’t always want the ball with his back to goal. He would drop back a bit and then burst forward, wanting the ball played into space. That’s what convinced us all and that’s what set him apart.”

Having played on the wing until well into his teens, Chicharito did not switch to a more central role until he moved up to the Chivas first team. He enjoyed an impressive debut, replacing Omar Bravo in the 82nd minute of a home game against Necaxa in September 2006 and scoring his first professional goal five minutes later to seal a 4-0 win. It proved a false dawn, however, and it took until 2008 for his major breakthrough to arrive.