Pea Shooter: The Rise Of Chicharito

“When he took his chance, it was like he was shelling peas. It was so natural to him.” That was the reaction of Sir Alex Ferguson, his face aglow in appreciation of Javier Hernandez’s winner against Valencia in the Estadio Mestalla, where the young Mexican monikered ‘Chicharito’ showed his predatory instincts by taking Kiko Macheda’s pass with a velvet first touch, before firing a clinical, low shot inside the post.

A noteworthy front man during his own playing days, Sir Alex recognises a player geared for goals. And his claim that the Reds have signed a natural finisher holds water. The third generation of his family to represent Mexico at a World Cup, Chicharito is clearly a thoroughbred goal-getter.

Yet along the way, including in the early days of his OT career, Hernandez has had to be patient. Just 18 months ago, at the age of 20, he found himself out on the fringes of the Chivas first team and experiencing enough self doubt to genuinely consider quitting football and becoming a full-time student. After more than two years without a goal for his boyhood club, despite a regime of hard training and clean living, he was stuck on the bench. For the first time, he was on the verge of being derailed from a future that had always looked so certain.

“He was weaned on football since being in his cot,” says his grandfather, Tomas Balcazar, a Mexican football legend and a goalscorer for El Tri at the 1954 World Cup – and whose son-in-law, Chicharito’s father Javier Hernandez Gutierrez, was part of Mexico’s squad at World Cup ’86. “We used to go to our plot of land near the airport and we played little games of football,” recalls Balcazar. “Chicharito used to play with us older folks and he used to slide-tackle us and take the ball. It was obvious he liked the game. He always had a serious inclination to be playing football.”

Chicharito was enlisted in Chivas’ youth system aged seven, rising through their ranks in a spell that included a stint as a matchday ball-boy for the first team. Professor Marco Fabian, the striker’s former youth coach, says his talents were soon recognised. “He was a hardworking boy with a lot of the qualities you see today: his explosive speed, his love of hitting the back of net, and his goal-poaching ability. He was a very hard-working player who always gave 100 per cent in training.

“He always demanded a lot from the other players. He was a winner. Even a draw would upset him. After one defeat, when he was 16 or 17, Javier spoke in front of the team and said he wasn’t going to accept losing. He said that despite his dad having a good career, he wanted to win and be a star off his own bat. Javier always had winning on his mind.”

Naturally for one so resolutely focused, Chicharito was also burdened by impatience. “The boy was always in such a rush to be playing football,” recalls Fabian. “One time when he arrived at training, he got out of the car so quickly that he fell over in his rush to get on to the pitch. Even as he got older, he was always very keen and restless, and when things didn’t go his way he got exasperated.”

That irritation surfaced soon after Chicharito’s first-team debut for Chivas, in September 2006. He’d scored in a 4-0 romp over Necaxa, but the 18-year-old’s form then dipped. He dropped out of the first-team picture, featuring for Chivas Coras de Tepic and Club Deportivo Tapatio – essentially their reserve teams – in Mexico’s Second Division. He played a starring role for both, but in early 2009, after two years without a senior goal, he joined his family and agent for a day of soul-searching. “He doubted himself,” says his father, Javier senior. “He doubted he was capable of playing in the First Division. We told him he had to be patient, but as a young player he was impatient. We talked to him about being persistent and told him that, in time, everything would come.”

The striker placed great faith in the opinions of his nearest and dearest – even at 20, he still lived in the family home – and their blanket reassurance did the trick. He played his way back into contention for Chivas and soon began scoring again. A drip became a flood, with 11 goals in 17 games during the 2009 Apertura tournament, and he was selected for Mexico’s senior team for the first time for a friendly against Colombia. Thrown on as a substitute with his side two goals down, Chicharito was played clean through, but alertly squared for Paul Aguilar to finish.

National coach Javier Aguirre, a former team-mate of Chicharito’s father, kept Hernandez in his squads and the goals duly flowed. They continued for Chivas, too, and soon Chicharito’s profile had gone global. On 1 April this year, the New York Times ran a feature on the forward, titled: ‘Chicharito could be Mexico’s next big thing.’ The story wasn’t news to United though; the Reds had been tailing Hernandez since October 2009.

And when an increasing number of European scouts began appearing at Chivas’ games, United’s head scout Jim Lawlor travelled to Mexico for a sustained look. A three-week trip took in a string of matches for club and country, Lawlor promptly gave the move his blessing, and the deal was struck so quickly and conducted so covertly that the striker and his father were the only family members who knew what was going on. “They tricked us,” laughs Chicharito’s grandfather. “They told us they were going on holiday to Atlanta!” In fact, the pair were in a private box at Old Trafford watching United’s Champions League exit to Bayern Munich.

“The next day, the phone rang and they said: ‘Turn the television on, you’ll see something very important,’” continues Balcazar. “We turned it on, and the first thing that we saw was the lad’s mug! Then we saw the badge of Manchester United. We just couldn’t believe it.”

The rest of football, like Balcazar, was dumbstruck, not least for the curious timing of the deal. United had planned to wait until the summer of 2010 to make a bid, but once it became clear Hernandez was on course for Mexico’s World Cup squad, the United manager dared not risk either losing the player or allowing his value to sky-rocket.

It proved to be a wise move. Strikes against France and Argentina in South Africa showed glimpses of Chicharito’s finishing, while his movement and link-up play also caught the eye. So did his speed: Hernandez had been clocked at 19.98 miles per hour, making him the fastest player at the tournament.

In appropriately hot-footed fashion, Hernandez quickly joined his new colleagues on the Houston leg of United’s pre-season tour, where a debut goal against the MLS All Stars further fanned the flames. His next stop, a return to Mexico as Chivas hosted United, turned up the temperature yet another notch.

“The future of an entire nation is at your feet,” hailed a giddy billboard outside a signing session conducted by Chicharito at a Nike store, the day before the game. And despite the event being held on a Thursday afternoon, with little promotion, more than 1,000 delirious fans attended – to the astonishment of store manager, Rosalinda Galvez. “The amount of people there was incredible,” she says. “Sales went through the roof and we sold out of almost everything. I’ve organised many signings at the store, but I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Clad in a Chivas shirt for the final time, Hernandez took just 10 minutes to open the scoring against his new club, before he switched sides at halftime, symbolising the next chapter of his journey. Another goal on his competitive Reds debut (albeit with an air of slapstick) helped beat Chelsea in the Community Shield and drew more headlines. Ryan Giggs was moved to comment on the impression made by Hernandez on his new team-mates.

“There are some players who are just born goalscorers,” Giggs said. “I’ve seen them over the years. When they face a goalkeeper in a one-on-one they’re ice cool, and I’ve seen that in Javier already. With the way he approaches his football and the way he plays, he’s going to score a lot of goals for us. I’ve seen over the years many goalscorers become legends for Manchester United… hopefully that can become the case with Javier.”

Displacing Messrs Rooney and Berbatov as first-choice strikers is no easy task, and Sir Alex has confirmed that extra gym work is required for Chicharito to embrace the rigours of regular Premier League and Champions League football. But, like any good predator, he’s prepared to wait, primed to strike at the merest sniff of an opportunity.