Gerard Moreno (Santa Perpetua de Moguda, 1992) got 37 points on the chin when he was six years old and, climbing the goalpost to rescue the ball, he slipped and a hook marked his face all his life. That is when the boy who admired Tamudo began to tan, and today squeezes Messi and Benzema in the scorers' table. The Pichichi is cheaper this strange season, in which the Argentine, intractable in the last three, only adds 22 goals and the Frenchman goes for 19. The striker of Villarreal has put him on a podium with which he did not even dream at the beginning of the season and that he could have as a prize the Zarra Trophy and an asterisk next to his name in Luis Enrique's list, as it already had in Robert Moreno's.

Raised in the Espanyol quarry , Villarreal signed him at 18 years old. They saw his future, but before he had to go through the subsidiary and through a loan to Mallorca in the Second Division where he shone and made a friendship with a player who intends to make the party bitter tonight: Marcos Asensio . His debut in Primera was with the yellow team in the 14/15 season where he already proved what it is to score at the Bernabéu. The return to the Champions League and the signing of Soldado returned him to his home club for three seasons. Espanyol paid 1.5 million euros for 50% of their rights and saw how the striker gave performance on the field and in the club's accounts.

20 million euros

With Quique Sánchez Flores on the bench, Gerard did his best campaign so far, with 16 league goals and one especially remembered: the one he scored in the 93rd minute of the duel at the Santiago Bernabéu that gave victory to the parakeets. Roig and Llaneza did not think about it and exercised the option to purchase the remaining 50% of their pass for 20 million euros , half of their termination clause. It was not well received that in his return to Ceramics the performance was not so spectacular in a very turbulent season, exemplified in the dismissal and return of Calleja .

It was just a matter of patience. 2020 was on the way to being his year. Villarreal's 7 started the campaign aiming high: six goals in the first seven days of the championship, better numbers than Karim Benzema in a team that, however, had not just started. But his good moment predicted a historic 2020 and opened the doors of a dream. On October 15, 2019 he debuted with the national team in the match against Sweden that gave the qualification for Euro 2020. In the following two calls he was a fixture for Robert Moreno and he responded by scoring in the overwhelming victories against Malta (7-0) and Romania (5-0).

His six goals since returning from the competition have pushed Villarreal to be the unexpected guest in the fight for the Champions League. With the Europa League in his pocket and Raúl García on his heels, the Catalan's goal is to achieve his first Zarra. Because the cherry on top of the Euro Cup was taken by a virus.

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