Jesus Vallejo, Real Madrid’s forgotten footballer who is ready to start again
For a long time, Jesus Vallejo was the forgotten man at Real Madrid.
When the club were going through an injury crisis in defence last season, with Dani Carvajal, David Alaba and Eder Militao out through injury, the centre-back still only played 10 minutes of league football between August and mid-May.
He featured in Madrid’s final three games, after their season was effectively over and they had no chance of winning La Liga.
Now the 28-year-old has joined Albacete and is ready to get his career back on track.
In an exclusive interview with The Athletic, Vallejo talks through the highs and lows of life at the world’s biggest club, how he coped with being sidelined by Carlo Ancelotti and what it was like playing alongside Cristiano Ronaldo and giving his No 5 shirt to Jude Bellingham.
Vallejo broke into the first team at Real Zaragoza while only 17. He made his debut in the 2014-15 season as the club were in Spain’s second tier, and within a year, he was captain and being bought for €5million ($4.3m/$5.8m) by Real Madrid.
“The coach of Zaragoza (then Ranko Popovic) told me to believe more in myself, he told me that if he saw things in me that I had to believe it. He was a very daring coach,” Vallejo tells The Athletic.
At that time, the defender was considered one of the most promising players in Spanish football and he became captain of Spain’s Under-19 and Under-21 teams. Before moving to Bernabeu, he spent the 2015-16 season back on loan with Zaragoza and 2016-17 in Germany with Eintracht Frankfurt.
“I remember that Madrid were encouraging us (young players) to go to the Bundesliga because Dani Carvajal did so well (during 2012-13 with Bayer Leverkusen). It’s true that at the beginning I didn’t see it, maybe I would have preferred to stay in Spain. But as the months went by, I saw the wisdom of Madrid. I fit in very well in the Bundesliga,” he says.
“We had a beastly pre-season on a physical level — a lot of running training, a lot of double sessions. That’s when the coach (Niko Kovac) needed people with desire and he put all the young players in. It’s a football that is similar to Real Madrid because it has a lot of transitions, but not very tactical, because you arrive in Spain and it’s more analytical. That completed my game before I went to Madrid.”
When Vallejo arrived at the Bernabeu in the summer of 2017, the team was led by stars such as Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Sergio Ramos and coached by the legendary Zinedine Zidane.
That group had just won two Champions League titles in a row, and completed a magnificent treble by winning it again in his first season at the club. Vallejo played 12 times that season for Madrid, including once in the Champions League.
Despite the fierce competition for a place in the starting line-up, the Spanish defender remembers Zidane with affection: “Those first few years he gave me a leading role and in training he gave me a lot of confidence. Zidane told me that roles can change. I enjoyed it, and I felt integrated.
“It’s true that I suffered a period of injuries but it was a good season, a season of initiation. I had to be ready for anything; that was my philosophy.”
After Madrid lifted their 13th Champions League in Kiev after beating Liverpool 3-1, both Zidane and Ronaldo suddenly left the club. Madrid fans were in a state of shock and their side struggled in the 2018-19 season, finishing third in La Liga, being knocked out in the Copa del Rey semi-finals and losing in the round of 16 in the Champions League.
“It was hard enough with Cristiano’s departure because of the goals. There has been a big void that has taken time to replace. He was a leader not only on the pitch but also off the pitch. In fact, I have tried to copy some of his routines on a day-to-day basis.
“He would arrive at the dressing room beforehand, (but) before training, he didn’t do much physical work. Afterwards, at home, he would do more strength work, but he prioritised the work on the pitch before. He knew when to push and when not to push. In that sense, he was very professional.”
In 2021, when Vallejo returned to Madrid after a succession of loan spells at Wolverhampton Wanderers and Granada, he found himself in a new winning team. But this time it was Thibaut Courtois, Karim Benzema and Vinicius Junior who led the team to their 14th Champions League title.
It was a season in which Vallejo played a little part under Ancelotti and made just eight appearances. The defender was still one of the heroes in the semi-finals against Manchester City, for his clearances to prevent an equaliser in the last minutes of extra time. It was one of Madrid’s epic comebacks that season (they won 6-5 on aggregate, 3-1 in the second leg at the Bernabeu).
“It was all very quick. I remember warming up on the touchline against City, they told me to go out and play and be forceful in the duels. Then in the dressing room, I remember the party, the people going crazy (…) I've played better games but that was the most decisive one. You could see that to a greater or lesser extent we were all important,” says Vallejo.
“From the outside, I understand the spectator who was surprised that I hadn't played for a long time and suddenly I performed that day. Look, even though it seems like a joke, I was thinking that in every game I could really play. That's what made me play well because if I’m disconnected, it’s impossible.
“Sometimes it’s inexplicable even for those of us who were in the team. You could see that the opposition were sometimes superior tactically, in terms of chances… but there was a mixture of things: that Courtois was spectacular that year, that the team always believed, that they were very united, and then the opponents fell apart with a goal.”
In his decade with Real Madrid, Vallejo also faced some bad times.
One of the most obvious has been his lack of games (only 35 appearances at Madrid across all competitions during the five seasons he spent at the club), which forced him into two more loan spells at Granada (2020-21 and 2023-24).
“When you leave on loan, there are some players who stay and you are at a bit of a disadvantage. You also think that maybe I could have stayed (instead of going on loan) because in the 2022-23 season, Madrid had a lot of departures,” the defender says on reflection. “This last year, on the other hand, it made sense to try to help the team and give my last service to the club before leaving.
“I’m left with the feeling that it’s a pity that the season is over now. I remember players who were exhausted, and I was physically fresh. It makes you feel angry to say, ‘Oh, I wish I could have come in earlier, I wish I could have played more games.’ But I’m happy to have played at the end of the season, I could have stayed without playing any games.”
“If I paid too much attention to that emotional rollercoaster (social media), I was probably going to have a bad time.
“So I stayed neutral and then I tried to have a good relationship with the press in the stadiums, in the different opportunities to speak, like the mixed zone. I’ve enjoyed that more than social media. “Sometimes I see social media as dangerous for young society because a lot of people believe everything that is said on there and they spend a lot of hours a day on it — too much for what is healthy.”
When Vallejo decides to switch off, it is not unusual to find him in Loscos, his mother’s hometown, which is in the province of Teruel in eastern Spain. The area is known as “empty Spain” because it is so quiet.
“In my village, there wasn’t even internet coverage for a long time. Seeing the people who live and work there, being with my cousin, who is a farmer, reminds me of my childhood. I used to spend my summers there and I still have the same friends,” says Vallejo.
“It’s more about the people than the town. It’s how I connect more with who I am, I get away from the footballer because we don’t talk much about football with my family. Every now and then it’s good to see that there’s more to life than football.” Another thing that has helped Vallejo deal with the more difficult moments of professional football is therapy.
“I remember in Madrid working with a psychologist and also at an earlier stage; it has been very good for me. I don’t know if it’s the coach himself or a figure from the club who focuses on sports psychology, but it’s important that you have the energy to go out and train in the morning when you get up, that you enjoy what you do,” he says.
“It has given me strength precisely to know what things I like to do. What I have discovered is that I like the sport, football itself, the game, the association with team-mates. That’s why, despite not playing, I’ve been able to manage it well because I’ve been focused on other things. Everyone has to discover where they are good at, where they feel comfortable in order to develop.
“But you don’t discover that in a moment. I’ve been discovering it through injuries, bad moments, having a hard time, not enjoying training. Luckily, I’ve discovered that I do like this world of football, but in my own way.”
There is one Madrid team-mate who has been close to Vallejo, and supported him throughout his time at the club.
“Without a doubt, Carvajal. He’s a guy who has helped me a lot since I arrived. Now, this last year, I have also been very close to him. He is a guy who is going to be captain without any doubt: he is a natural captain, he has innate leadership.”
But there is also a new generation of players leading the way at Madrid, and Vallejo speaks very highly of Federico Valverde and Bellingham, the player who he gave his No 5 shirt when he joined the club.
“Fede Valverde is a leader, a competitor who is very shy in the dressing room but who changes completely on the pitch. He wants to play everything, he’s contagious, a guy who goes the furthest distance for the team, who wants the fewest recovery days. He’s going to pull the cart (of the Madrid team) for many years.
“I remember they signed Jude and the club told me that Jude liked the No 5 that had belonged to Zidane. I didn’t need anything else, I told them that of course I would be delighted to give him the No 5. A minute later, Jude sent me a long message in English in private that was very emotional.
“Then, in person during the pre-season, he thanked me a lot. He’s a guy who looks much older than he is. He has a very good mentality, I was delighted to give him the number before meeting him and even more so after I got to know him.”
But Madrid is in the past now for Vallejo. He was not called up for the Club World Cup and took his time to weigh up all the options on the table.
“I was on holiday this summer and I really liked the atmosphere there. I was in Los Angeles, in the Grand Canyon, and I was very comfortable. You always have to listen to everyone, but now I see it as a long way away in my career.”
In the end, the defender chose Albacete, a city 259 kilometres from Madrid and located in Castilla-La Mancha — where the famous character Don Quixote is from and where the Barcelona legend Andres Iniesta began his youth career.
Vallejo was announced on a billboard in the city centre, with hundreds of fans screaming with enthusiasm at the sight of the player’s face.
