It has been a long time, so long it doesn’t have the same name any more, but on Friday Elvira Mato returns to the Neckarstadion. In those days, a resident at No 57 Friedhofstrasse, in the city that was her home for 22 years, she would go to watch her local team, VfB Stuttgart. For a while, they had a young, emerging forward called Jürgen Klinsmann; now she is here to watch an older striker as Germany face Spain in the Euro 2024 quarter-final. His name is Joselu, he is Elvira’s son, and he was born here in 1990. It has been a long journey back.
Joselu’s parents were among the 600,000 Spaniards who emigrated to Germany in the 1960s and 70s. His father drove a post van and Joselu briefly went to school in Stuttgart but soon moved to Silleda, Galicia, with his mum and older sister. There, Elvira ran Bar Triana and her son played football, leaving for Celta Vigo at 13, the first of 10 clubs across three countries that finally brought him here again, to where it all began.
Joselu, who took his mother’s surname, made his debut at Madrid in 2012 but didn’t play another game for them for 11 years. Between his first match there and his second, there was Hoffenheim, Eintracht Frankfurt, Hannover, Stoke Newcastle, Deportivo La Coruña, Alavés and Espanyol. Then he went back to Madrid and won the Champions League, scoring two in two minutes to defeat Bayern in the semi-final. There was a Spain debut, too, two days before his 33rd birthday. He scored twice within four minutes of coming on. Joselu is playing his first international tournament at 34, back in Stuttgart 31 years later.
“It will be special,” the Spain striker says from the selección’s Donaueschingen training camp, 125km south of the city. “Talking to my mum and sister, many memories will come back. Well, not for me, as I was only very small when we returned to Spain. But for them, above all, it will be a very special game. My mum went to this ground when she was here to watch Stuttgart. She was here 22 years and it was a stadium and a country that treated her very well.
“I wasn’t even three when we went back to Spain but they told me about the respect there is in this country, the order. And that’s how my mum and sister brought me up. Then I experienced that for myself when I played here for three years. I’m very grateful because they treated me very well. But I represent Spain and we want to win; it’s not just special because I have been here but because it’s a quarter-final. We’ve got Germany and Stuttgart. And my first goal in the Bundesliga was in Stuttgart, too, so hopefully that can continue.”
That day Joselu scored Hoffenheim’s second in a 3-0 win, assisted by Roberto Firmino, and Antonio Rüdiger was on the opposition’s bench. Now a teammate at Real Madrid, Rüdiger will be in the middle of the Germany defence. “I spoke to him the other day, a few short words,” Joselu says. “I don’t think he’s in a very good mood, having got Spain in the quarters,”
Another teammate faces him. While Joselu has just announced his signing for the Qatari side Al-Gharafa – an 11th club in a fourth country – Toni Kroos has decided to retire at the top. If not, Joselu hopes, the very, very top. “I love Toni, care about him, but I think that Friday is Toni’s last game,” Joselu says. “Germany are big favourites to win this competition but we hope to retire Toni. We know the qualities he has. He is fundamental. The ball goes through him every time Germany have possession. We will have a special eye on him so Germany don’t enjoy their play.
“It’s a pleasure for me to have played with him. He’s been a teammate, a friend, he has given me advice, we’ve spoken a lot. It’s a pity we have to bid farewell to Toni like this but hopefully we win and it’s his last game – for our own good.”
Win and Joselu would be two games away from being a European champion with club and country. When it is put to him that all this this must have seemed impossible when he was a substitute at a Stoke team near the bottom of the Premier League, he shoots back, grinning: “Hey, we were ninth that year! You need to be better informed.”
He adds: “Football is so lovely because of those things, because you never know what might happen. Work, sacrifice, being a good person can bring you to live moments like this. When I was at Stoke, I don’t think any player there could imagine playing at Real Madrid. I never stopped dreaming, never stopped thinking one day it might happen, and now look. I enjoy every day. It’s not easy to get to a club like Real Madrid at 33, to achieve what I have this year, to be in the Spain squad. It’s not easy to get to the Euros.
“I have had moments that were not so [good] but it all comes in the end. I’m very happy with everything I lived and learned, because that is what brought me here. It’s not been an easy path. If only I could have been at Real Madrid for 10 years, but this is football and playing for those [top] clubs is reserved for a handful of chosen ones. You have to appreciate it all. I have enjoyed every moment, every experience; that has fed me, it has brought me here.”
