Iago Aspas: From That Liverpool Corner to the Heels of Ronaldo in La Liga

Iago Aspas stretched out his shirt with his left hand, lifting the chest of it toward his mouth to kiss the badge. It's his badge, and he's been kissing it a lot lately, more than any of his team-mates can or perhaps ever would do, and more than nearly every player in La Liga could have done with their own. 

Aspas had been teed up by Theo Bongonda early in the second half on Sunday at the Benito Villamarin, turning it home on the volley with the outside of his left boot. And so the customary celebration unfolded, lips to the badge, for the second time in an hour; for the fifth time in four games; for the 10th time in eight; for the 12th time in 13. 

The striker who's back at home at Celta Vigo is sizzling, and Spain is taking notice. His two goals in Celta's 3-3 draw with Real Betis took him to 12 goals for the season in all competitions and to nine in the Primera Division.

That's five more league goals than Neymar and Karim Benzema, four more than Gareth Bale, and three more than Antoine Griezmann, Kevin Gameiro and Yannick Carrasco. It's the same number of goals as Luis Suarez and Lionel Messi, and it's only one fewer than Cristiano Ronaldo. 

It's said that there's nothing quite like home, and Aspas is showing it. Dashing and confident, inventive and lethal, he scored two in the derby against Deportivo La Coruna, two in one of the games of the season against Las Palmas and two more on Sunday in another thriller with Betis.

He's scored against names like Barcelona and Ajax, and he's scored against England—at Wembley and in a Spain shirt. All just two years after that corner. 

Few moments in Premier League history have ever been seized upon and held up by so many to define a player's time in England in the way Aspas' corner against Chelsea has been. In Liverpool's 2-0 loss to the Blues in April 2014, a game that dented the Reds' title charge, the Spaniard's comical ball from in front of the Kop in the dying seconds was one perfect for the digital generation and essentially what Vine was created for. 

It was as though he was colour blind or, worse, didn't even look. His flat ball from the corner found Willian standing on his own, at least 15 yards away from any Liverpool player. On Merseyside, Aspas will never live it down. In Vigo, he doesn't have to.

Aspas is now back at the club of his home and his heart after stints away at Liverpool and then on loan at Sevilla. To understand what Celta means to him, you must look at his history there. 

Now 29, he joined the club more than two decades ago at the age of eight, progressing through the youth ranks and into the first team at Balaidos. He's the local lad from Moana who saved them from relegation from the Segunda Division to the desolate third tier in 2009, scoring two late goals against Alaves on the penultimate weekend of the season, the second of them in stoppage time with the score locked at 1-1. 

He's also the man whose excellence and goals—23 of them—in 2011-12 brought Celta back up to La Liga after five seasons away. He's the man who, once his team had got there, ensured they stayed. It's not an exaggeration to say Aspas is the reason Celta are where they are, flying and settled in the top division and one of the most exciting teams in the country. 

In 2013, his move to Anfield looked like the major break in his career. He was coming off 37 goals in two seasons, and those at Celta understood he had to go. 

Spain's smaller clubs happily sell to the financial monsters in the Premier League because that's what they need to do to survive. Aspas was waved goodbye to in Vigo, but Celta knew it had to be this way. Doing this also helps them buy the player they hope will follow; selling Aspas allowed Celta to buy Nolito. 

But selling Aspas never worked out for Aspas, even if it worked out for his club. At Liverpool, he found himself caught behind the barnstorming pair of Suarez and Daniel Sturridge in the Reds' best season for years. Adapting to the physicality of the Premier League was also difficult for a player expected to play like Sergio Aguero but built like Joe Allen.

It didn't help that he was never able to knock down the language barrier nor embed himself into the city. Marca (in Spanish) said a couple of years later that the only word he ever learned was "yes," but that wasn't true. As noted by Pete Jenson for the MailOnline, he told Spanish radio not long after his move that he'd also learned the phrase "f--k off."

Why was he signed, then? It was because he can seriously play, but what the former Red shows is that making a transfer work is about more than talent. A player must fit in, not just to a system or a style, but to a squad, a club, a city and country. It's about personalities and ambitions aligning. It's about knowing who you're getting (the person) and not just what you're getting (the footballer). 

If it was just about talent, then Aspas would have worked out at Liverpool. You only have to look at him now to see it. 

Back at Balaidos, the local hero is leading Celta again with all the qualities Liverpool once saw. A source of incessant energy, he's always at the heart of everything Eduardo Berizzo's team do, and he's usually the man finishing it all off as well.

Last season, he played in the middle of a potent front three that included Nolito and Fabian Orellana. The former is now gone, off with Pep Guardiola at Manchester City, but Aspas still ploughs on. This season, he's scored goals on the break, in traffic, with dinks, with volleys, with blasts and with curling strikes—just ask England. 

The Celta star hadn't even expected to play that night at Wembley, but an injury to Diego Costa opened the door for a call-up. He found out when he was in the shower at Celta's training ground in A Madroa; Julen Lopetegui was on the phone, and Aspas thought it was a joke. 

"I was in the shower," he told the club's official website (h/t AS). "I still can't quite believe it."

He might have been struggling to believe it even more when he scored on his debut, after coming on in the second half. But if he couldn't, plenty of the others could believe it. This was what he'd been doing for months, scoring for fun, "fun" being the operative word.

He and Celta are among the best entertainment La Liga has. In six of the club's last eight games in all competitions, there have been four goals or more; in five of them, there have been five or more, two of them ending 3-3, the derby ending 4-1 and the thriller with Barcelona ending 4-3.

Aspas scored in all of them, and he scored against Barcelona last season, too. Twice. After the second of them, he kept running beyond the goal and toward the crowd, launching himself on top of the advertising boards, arms in the air, the crowd going wild in front of him. It might be the image of his career.  

"I feel loved here," he said that night, per Sport (in Spanish), and he is. He'd be loved at Balaidos whether he had nine goals in the league or none. But he has nine, the same number as Messi and Suarez; only one behind Ronaldo. That corner will never define him.