They hadn’t expected him but Villarreal awaited Nicolas Jackson with open arms when he landed back in Spain on board the same plane in which he had left. It was late January and the journey, supposed to be one way, hadn’t gone as planned. He had flown to England to join Bournemouth for €25m, but a failed medical forced a return, his big opportunity gone.
At 21, still on a B team contract six months since he was playing in the third tier, and with just eight first division starts and a hamstring injury that would limit him to a solitary minute until April, he didn’t know if another would come.
