There were plenty of shocks and surprises in 2020 but in the football world at least, the sight of James Rodriguez arriving at Goodison Park was up there, yet the Colombian superstar was ultimately to become the greatest player that Evertonians never saw. If a week is considered a long time in politics – a single morning at Balmoral Castle was hectic enough yesterday – two years in the Premier League can seem like a relative epoch and the events of September 7, 2020, when James joined Everton now seem in many ways like some wild coronavirus-induced dream.
The playmaker was of course teaming up with his old mentor Carlo Ancelotti for the third time in his career after the Italian had previously signed him for Real Madrid and Bayern Munich. He even admitted at the time: “That was a massive reason to come here.” In terms of pedigree, James could make a strong case for being one of the most gifted players to have ever donned the royal blue jersey having won the Golden Boot at the 2014 World Cup finals, a tournament in which many thought he was also the outstanding individual performer in, despite the sop of handing Lionel Messi the Golden Ball even though the legendary Argentinian failed to find the net beyond the group stages.
It was an honour that James shared with England’s Gary Lineker, who was top scorer at the 1986 World Cup, his last acts as an Everton player as he was sold for £2.8million to Barcelona after the finals in Mexico and following a solitary 40-goal season at Goodison. In terms of what they achieved in club football, Wayne Rooney, who bookended his Premier League career with two shorts stints at his beloved boyhood heroes either side of a record-breaking 13-year spell at Manchester United, plus Samuel Eto’o, who enjoyed a glittering career before an even more fleeting stay with the Blues, find themselves at the summit in the 'show us your medals' stakes.
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As for the most outstanding players while at Everton, in the Post-Second World War era at least, you’d surely point to Neville Southall, widely-regarded as the best goalkeeper in the world while at the peak of his powers, and Alan Ball, of whom midfield partner Howard Kendall would later quip: “Everton’s scouting network was legendary, they spotted Alan Ball playing a World Cup final.” That being a game in which Ball was named man of the match despite Geoff Hurst netting a hat-trick. James though could certainly be seriously talked about in the same conversations as the aforementioned icons and at least he surely possessed the most-educated left peg at Goodison since Kevin Sheedy.
Despite early concerns over fitness and getting up to speed to the gruelling pace of the game in England’s top flight, James started brightly and on his home debut he was seemingly able to dominate opponents West Bromwich Albion without breaking sweat. He helped himself to a goal and an assist against the Baggies despite statisticians not recording a single sprint from him in the entire game.
While James was dictating the tempo, also bagging a brace against Brighton & Hove Albion, one element of the game on these shores he was unable to control was the physicality and, as much as the aftermath from Everton’s next fixture – a 2-2 draw at home to Liverpool – was dominated by the talk concerning Virgil van Dijk’s injury following a challenge from Jordan Pickford, it is often conveniently overlooked by many that the Reds big centre-back, guilty of a nasty-looking high tackle on Amadou Onana in last weekend’s Merseyside derby back at Goodison, had set the tone for the afternoon by going through the back of both Dominic Calvert-Lewin and James early on.
It was a fact not lost on Ancelotti, though, who in his pre-match press conference for the subsequent game at Southampton, stated the “simple” reason James had not trained all week was down to the Dutchman’s first minute tackle on him. The remarks caused something of a furore, especially after the player was later passed fit to feature at St Mary’s, but he was then ruled out of Everton’s next match at Newcastle United, which would signal the beginning of what became a frustrating stop-start campaign for him as he nursed a series of niggles.
James was out with a calf strain for the trio of Goodison fixtures each played in front of restricted crowds of 2,000 in December 2020 and while he returned to net goals against Leicester City, Manchester United and Crystal Palace in the New Year, plus laying on the assist for Richarlison’s third-minute goal against Liverpool which put the Blues on their way to a first win at (an albeit empty) Anfield since 1999, ongoing problems with a calf injury disrupted his rhythm and he did not play in nine of the final 14 Premier League fixtures or the team’s FA Cup fifth round or quarter-final ties.
A dismal 1-0 defeat to an already-relegated rock bottom Sheffield United on May 16, 2021 proved to be James’ final Goodison outing as he made way for Bernard, another South American who would make a lucrative but unambitious switch to a petrodollar-fuelled port of call on the Gulf before him, in the 78tj minute. While the result dented Everton’s European qualification hopes – they’d been second in the table going into the New Year after a 1-0 win in the reverse fixture at Bramall Lane on Boxing Day – they remained in the hunt for one of the UEFA competitions with two games remaining, yet Ancelotti allowed the player to leave the country and return home to Colombia early ahead of that summer’s Copa America.
Photographs of James luxuriating on a first class flight while there were still points to be played for didn’t sit well with many Evertonians and to rub salt in the wounds, after he missed the Blues final home fixture – with 6,068 fans inside Goodison for the 1-0 victory over Wolverhampton Wanderers – he ultimately wasn’t picked by his country for the tournament with coach Reinaldo Rueda concerned that the player still wasn’t at his “optimal level”. Before the month was out, Ancelotti had defected on Everton to return to Real Madrid, leaving a serious question mark over James’ future, which became even more pertinent after the controversial appointment of Rafael Benitez, who had reportedly endured a fractious relationship with the player during his time in the Bernabeu hotseat.
Despite featuring for the club in several friendlies that summer – including the Florida Cup, where he proved a popular figure with Orlando’s many Latin fans – James had not played in any of Everton’s four Premier League fixtures when the transfer window for Europe’s major nations closed on September 1 but he remained at the club. The purgatory was broken with a switch to Qatari outfit Al-Rayyan over three weeks later with the Colombian having departed without once playing a competitive match on these shores in front of spectators.
Given that his current employers turn out in front of average gates of less than 4,000, there seems little difference for James now than his peculiar lockdown cameo on Merseyside other than the stifling heat and obvious significant drop in quality of the football. It’s understood that he could have gone back to one of his previous clubs Porto last summer in a potential part-exchange deal that might have enabled his compatriot Luis Diaz to join Everton.
However, just over a year on, the winger is now firmly established across Stanley Park with local rivals Liverpool after his £37.5million January switch and despite rumours of a potential return to Europe this summer, at 31, James appears to have turned his back on the game at the elite level. The stint will undoubtedly boost his bank balance but while the player remains a global icon with that very modern barometer of popularity, Instagram, providing him with almost 50million followers, there’s a deeply regrettable feeling that he’s one of the biggest lost talents in the game.
Like the Barcelona contingent procured by Marcel Brands, who was also responsible for major flop Moise Kean from Juventus, James in many ways represents the obsession with supposed superstars that has dogged Farhad Moshiri’s tenure, with the Monaco-based businessman’s penchant for big names to illuminate the region he dubbed as “the new Hollywood of football” shortly after becoming Everton owner. With lessons having been learned, now with Frank Lampard and Kevin Thelwell, the Blues are having to learn to cut their cloth more accordingly and make more subtle yet sustainable progress.
Under different circumstances, James might have been fun for a while for long-suffering Evertonians but they just never got to see him play in the flesh. Watching your heroes on television might suffice for the glory-hunting armchair fans of some teams but not the loyal match-going patrons of Goodison Park, English football’s oldest major fanbase.
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