Carlos Vela (c) celebrates with his Los Angeles FC teammates. JAVIER ROJAS/EFE (EFE)
What a strange case that of Carlos Vela.
A soccer player well above average, technically speaking, but who doesn't like soccer (as a spectator he says he prefers basketball, which he also practiced as a child).
A guy who could mark an era in the Mexican team, but who attended the calls as little as possible and seemed relieved when, at his request, they stopped calling him.
A striker who rose to fame as a teenager, when he was part of the Mexican U-17 team that won the World Cup in Peru in 2005, in which he was the top scorer, but it took him 23 years to win a league title with a club.
He just got it on Saturday, in MLS, as captain of Los Angeles FC, which won on penalties by beating Philadelphia.
The Mexican was in charge of lifting the trophy into the air when the victory was consummated, and he seemed happy.
Vela was born in Cancún, Quintana Roo, in 1989. He began his career in the Ko´Cha´Wolis children's club (a Mayan name that roughly means "round ball") and went from there to the Chivas de Guadalajara basic forces together with with his brother Alexander.
He did not make his debut in the Guadalajara first team because, after his performance with the sub 17 in Peru, the English Arsenal caught him.
Due to the age limits imposed in the Premier League, he was transferred to Spanish football and paraded, sometimes as a midfielder, others as a midfielder, for Salamanca and Osasuna.
Finally, he made his debut with Arsenal in 2008, in which he remained until 2011, when he was loaned, in the winter market, to West Bromwich Albion.
In the summer of that year he would take the most important step in his club career, being transferred to Real Sociedad de San Sebastián.
There he saw the best Vela.
He formed a still-remembered partnership with the Frenchman Antoine Griezmann and carved out enormous prestige for himself as a fine, successful striker capable of any technical prodigy.
He was considered the club's player of the year in 2012 and 2014 and earned the appreciation of the fans.
In 250 games, he scored 73 goals and provided 45 assists.
Excellent numbers for someone who is not a natural centre-forward.
Perhaps that is why he took the world of soccer by surprise when in 2018, at just 29 years old, he decided not to renew with Real and continue his career at Los Angeles FC in the American league, which is usually considered a space for the retirement of figures. in the twilight of their trajectories.
For not a few, his flight to the United States was, without more, a waste of a talent that he could continue to dazzle in Europe.
And if we go to wasted talent, Vela's history with the Mexican team is quite a sampler.
Vela could have played four World Cups (in 2006 he was too young and his first call-up to the senior team was in 2007), but his path turned out to be too bumpy.
He went to South Africa 2010, after being important in the Mexican victory in the 2009 Gold Cup. But a feeling of indiscipline, in a 2011 concentration, separated him from the team for six months.
Vela was outraged by the handling of the Mexican Federation and moved away from the calls from now on.
He therefore stopped attending the 2011 Copa América in Argentina, the 2012 London Olympics, the 2013 Confederations Cup and the 2014 World Cup in Germany, to which he refused to go at his best with Real Sociedad.
They managed to convince him to return in 2015, in time for Mexico to win another Gold Cup and in time to attend Russia 2018, where he had some of his best performances in the green jersey.
But in 2019 he announced his definitive retirement from the national team.
He argued family and personal reasons.
In the US he has shone and, after winning two cups, he was finally crowned in a league.
Some consider him the best in all of MLS.
His enormous talent, however, will stay in Los Angeles this time.
Will Mexico miss him in Qatar?
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