James Rodriguez Proving His Worth with Quality and Hard Work for Real Madrid

James Rodriguez continued his impressive first campaign at Real Madrid with two goals and an assist in their Copa del Rey thrashing of Cornella on Tuesday.

No Madrid player has played more often than Rodriguez so far this season. Per Soccerway, he has played a total of 1629 minutes in the four main competitions (La Liga, Champions League, Copa del Rey and the UEFA Super Cup) the club have been involved in to date.

And he is again likely to have a key role to play when Madrid host Celta Vigo at the Bernabeu on Saturday.

It was Rodriguez’s sparkling attacking displays at this summer’s World Cup—including his stunning, Puskas-award-nominated goal against Uruguay—that first attracted Madrid to the Colombian. And he provided further evidence of these talents against Cornella.

He opened the scoring with a beautiful, Raul-esque, clipped finish over the prone away goalkeeper. He slipped in Isco for the second and then scored the third himself with a nice placed shot into the corner of the net following Javier Hernandez’s neat flick into his path.

The 23-year-old has now scored nine goals and provided 10 assists in 23 appearances in all competitions. Per the Twitter account of MisterChip (in Spanish), that puts him in exalted company alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi as the only three players in Spain with both nine or more goals and nine or more assists so far this season.

But what is more impressive is that he is also making a strong contribution when Madrid don’t have the ball. Before moving to Spain he was primarily a central attacking midfielder or a wide midfielder with few defensive responsibilities. Now, whether in the centre of midfield in a 4-3-3 or on the left flank in a 4-4-2, he does more than his fair share of defensive work.

Per WhoScored.com, he has averaged 2.5 tackles and interceptions per match in league play, and 3.8 per match in the Champions League. By this measure, he ranks third of Madrid’s regular midfielders in the league and second, behind Isco, in the Champions League.

Rodriguez’s capacity for hard work and sacrifice has been evident right from the beginnings of his career. Per El Espectador (in Spanish), he paid the youth-team coach of his first club Envigado for extra training sessions in order to improve his game. Then, at 16, he took the brave step of moving to Argentina to join Banfield. There, his dedication to self-development saw him compared to Ronaldo.

Now he is embracing the greater defensive responsibility handed to him by Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti.

“Players at the top level have to be ready for everything,” he told ESPN FC’s Dermot Corrigan last month. “It is true that I have a bit more covering to do. Every day I am learning new things…the most important thing is to try and help the team.”

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“We are delighted with him,” Ancelotti said after the victory over Cornella. “I really like his attitude because he is humble and that is important.”

Former Madrid sporting director and highly successful AC Milan coach Arrigo Sacchi was in attendance at the club’s training session on Friday morning. As a noted advocate of universality over specialism, he will doubtless have been impressed by Rodriguez’s multi-faceted displays so far this season.

Just four-and-a-half months into his career at the capital, Rodriguez has settled into his new surroundings and is producing admirably consistent performances. Criticism of the sale of Angel Di Maria has gradually subsided as the talent of his successor has started to come to the fore.

With both his quality and his work rate, Rodriguez is proving himself more than worthy of replacing Di Maria, representing Real Madrid and, indeed, of his hefty transfer fee. The great news for the club is that at just 23 years old there is still plenty of upside to come.