Raul de Tomas, whose full name is Raul de Tomas Gomez, plays professional football in Spanish LaLiga’s RCD Espanyol. He joined the team during the 2020 winter transfer window. He has played in numerous Spanish clubs in his career and even spent some time with the Portuguese club Benfica. In this post, we will find out more about him. Let’s get started.

Raul de Tomas: All You Need To Know

Who is Raul de Tomas?

Raul de Tomas Gomez is Madrid born and bred. He had to carve out his own path to settle in the elite of Spanish football. When Real Madrid signed him to Alevín B from San Roque, his main task was the same as now: scoring goals. And he did that for many years in Madrid until he had to leave to mature and become the footballer he is today. To gain experience, he played on loan in laLiga 2 in Cordoba, Real Valladolid and Rayo Vallecano. 

It would be with this last team that he would get promoted, scoring 24 goals and being the difference maker in the Vallecano attack. The following season saw his debut in the first division and after also standing out in the top flight it was Benfica who managed to enroll him in their ranks. Only six months in Portugal served to certify that the best place for Raul de Tomas to stand out is in the Spanish League. Back in LaLiga, Espanyol paid a large transfer fee for him to be their star and the franchise player of a striker who has been called up by Luis Enrique with the Spanish team based on his excellent play and a deluge of goals.

How did Raul de Tomas start his football career?

At the age of eight, Raul de Tomas started his football journey at the CD San ​​Roque EFF training school, where he spent three years. In 2004, he joined Real Madrid’s Alevín B. There he began his beginnings as a junior player for the Los Blancos, who was improving game by game and rising in the lower teams with important scoring records. 

In this way, the 2011/12 season arrived, a campaign in which he was in the youth team of Real Madrid. He scored 31 goals in the campaign. So in the following season, he was in the subsidiary team, a great leap from Raul de Tomás, but due to the stiff competition he faced in the squad, he ended up playing games for Real Madrid C, matches in which he scored eight goals. In 2013 he was the protagonist in the final of the Copa del Rey Juvenil, a competition in which he scored one of the team’s winning goals. After that, at the age of 19, he joined Real Madrid Castilla, and in the 2013/2014 season he stood out with fourteen goals in two campaigns.

When did Raul de Tomas make his debut for Real Madrid?

At the end of October 2014, he made his debut with the first team, when Carlo Ancelotti was managing the squad, in the first leg of the Copa del Rey round of 32, in which Los Blancos faced Union Esportiva Cornella, but the match started for Raul de Tomas on the bench, although in the second half he came onto the pitch, replacing Benzema. However, he began to stagnate as a player on the main Real Madrid roster, which was the beginning of his loan spells to other Spanish clubs in the following seasons, making a total of four seasons in which he was seen in another squad.

Raul de Tomas: Cordoba

The first club that he left on loan was Cordoba and he was only there for one season, in which he scored six goals in the 27 games he played with Jose Luis Oltra as the coach.

Raul de Tomas: Real Valladolid

At the end of August 2016, at the end of the summer transfer market, he headed to the Pucelano club in a new assignment in his professional career, a year in which he had more minutes on the pitch, although he faced stiff competition with Jose Arrainz and Jaime Mata, but started 22 games. However, Raul de Tomas was the team’s top scorer, with 15 goals in the 39 games he played.

Raul de Tomas: Rayo Vallecano

After the two mentioned assignments, he returned to Real Madrid, but the Madrid giants loaned him for another season. This time, he was sent to the team from the Madrid working-class neighborhood at the end of the 2017 summer market, Rayo Vallecano. He joined the team as the main striker and it was a season in which he stood out for his great performances and commitment to Rayo Vallecano. 

Three hat-tricks among the 24 goals

He scored 24 goals as a Rayo Vallecano player, four of them with headers, four from penalties, five with his left foot, and 15 with his right. He also had three hat-tricks in the season. One against Lorca, another against Cultural Leonesa, and one against Reus, so he was a key piece for the team to achieve promotion to the highest football competition in Spain. It should be noted that he won two trophies as the best player of the month, being the featured footballer in March and April.

At the end of this season he returned to Real Madrid to try to have opportunities at the legendary club, but seeing in the preseason that he did not have many minutes, the striker wanted to go back to a team where he was on top form, so Real Madrid and Rayo Vallecano again reached an agreement for a new assignment, so Raul de Tomás knew what it was like to be a First Division striker with the striped shirt, despite the fact that he renewed his contract with the Real Madrid until June 2023.

The striker made his debut as a First Division player

After a dismal season in the LaLiga, Rayo Vallecano ended up being relegated to the LaLiga 2. However, the striker from Madrid scored 14 goals, highlighting that against Celta de Vigo, the first game of 2019, Raul de Tomás scored a hat-trick in a clash in Vallecas that ended 4-2. A league year that the red-and-red team returned to LaLiga 2.

Raul de Tomas: Benfica

At the end of the Rayo Vallecano campaign, he returned to Real Madrid but saw that he was not going to have enough opportunities to get playing time in Madrid’s star studded lineup. As a result of that, Real Madrid and Benfica reached an agreement for the transfer of Raul de Tomas for 20 million euros. In July, Raul de Tomas left for Benfica and signed a five year deal with the Portuguese giants. A new squad in which he fought to have opportunities, which he did not achieve and he was out of several calls and only scored three goals.

Raul de Tomas: RCD Espanyol

In the winter market of 2020, he was the first signing of the parakeet team to reinforce the squad’s attack at a delicate moment in Abelardo’s squad. The signing cost 20 million euros plus two million in variables, becoming the most expensive signing of the club’s history, despite the fact that he was performing in each game he played while sporting the blue and white shirt.

His first game as a parakeet player was against SS Reyes in the Copa del Rey, although he started on the bench, he came on in the second half and scored the team’s second goal to secure the team’s passage in the competition. His league debut was against Villarreal at La Ceramica, a match in which he started and scored one of the goals in a match in which Espanyol won, thus taking the three points to Cornella.

In the next match against Real Sociedad for the Copa del Rey, he was not called up, so he missed the match. The League returned with the match against Athletic Bilbao at the RCDE Stadium and Raul de Tomas once again stood out when it came to scoring since he was the one who scored the goal for the parakeet team and the squad added one more point. The following day, the blue and white team visited the Los Carmenes Stadium to face Granada, a match in which they saw defeat after the score was 2-1, but the parakeet goal was again from the striker from Madrid, his third goal in as many games.

Espanyol then squared off against Mallorca, a new victim for Raul de Tomas, another team that couldn’t keep Raul de Tomas away from the scoring sheet. In this case, it was the Blue and Whites’ victory goal. In this way, he entered the history of the parakeet club by scoring a goal in each game that he was playing with the Espanyol shirt. Seville and Valladolid were the next league clashes, but the striker missed out due to discomfort in his left leg, along with the two European games against the Wolverhampton Wanderers from England, in which Espanyol was finally eliminated from the Europa League.

He returned against Atletico de Madrid and was once again the protagonist of the only goal, since Stefan Savic gave his shot and entered the goal of Simeone’s team, opening the scoring at the RCDE Stadium, despite the fact that the match ended with a score of 1-1. In the last game before the stoppage due to the Coronavirus, Abelardo’s team saw a defeat in Pamplona, ​​being the only game in which Raul de Tomas did not score a goal.

How was the promotion + relegation experience for Raul de Tomas at Espanyol?

Totally different. When he arrived, he came with the intention of saving the team and it is true that in the first five games he scored five goals in a row, but then Covid came and that break affected the team a lot. From there, the team plummeted and it could not reverse the situation. The following year, the team’s courage was shown, and how it stood up for promotion the following season, something that is very difficult that the team managed to achieve.

Raul de Tomas: Spanish National Team

Raul de Tomas also played for Spain in the Under -17, Under -18, and Under – 19 categories, without knowing until recently what it is like to play with the senior team, but in the lower teams he managed to score six goals, two in each category.

Raul de Tomas has all the elements for us to talk about him as a modern footballer. Whether it’s because of his outward appearance with multiple tattoos on his arms, an always pristine hairstyle, and a sculpted physique with a lot of work behind him. Or for his skills on the field of play where he becomes a forward with great mobility, power, and speed capable of dismantling a defense in the blink of an eye, or his strong shot that has made him score several great goals, the most remembered the one he achieved last season against UD Almería from midfield. The Espanyol striker’s repertoire does not end here and his time at El Club del Deportista shows us a very close Raul de Tomas, eager to take his football to the next level. 

How did Raul de Tomas feel about getting called up to the Spanish national team?

This is how Raul de Tomas narrated the incident: ”The Espanyol delegate told me. I was on the beach and he called me to tell me that he had to present me on Monday in Las Rozas. It was something unforgettable that I will never forget and I am very grateful to Luis Enrique and all of his coaching staff who decided to count on me.”

How has Raul de Tomas performed this season?

He is the Spanish player with the most goals in LaLiga, Espanyol is eight points ahead of the relegation places, and he has been called up for the Spanish team. It has been a very good season for Raul de Tomas. Speaking about the season, Raul de Tomas said: “Yes, very happy personally. The fact of doing things well individually also favors everything to go better collectively. Happy with how things are going this year, there are still games to go and I hope to continue like this.”

How was Raul de Tomas’ start with football?

The beginning of everything is in Real Madrid Castillas. At that time he trained with the youth team and then went up to compete with the Madrid subsidiary in the second division. He did not have much participation and from there came the opportunity to go to Córdoba, Valladolid, and Rayo Vallecano. That was his maturity as a footballer, and it was the best decision he could make because it has led him to be who he is today. He is especially fond of his decision to be loaned out of Real Madrid.

How has Raul de Tomas matured as a football player?

As time has passed, Raul de Tomas has gained in maturity both on and off the field. In the end, when you play matches professionally, you realize what the competition really asks of you. Raul de Tomas has been adapting, changing things in his game so that he is a better footballer every day.

Why did Raul de Tomas leave Benfica?

From the first day, Raul de Tomas didn’t fit well into the team’s game system, the style of play they have in Portugal. He thinks that in his day the coach did not understand his position of play. Here’s what he said about the matter: “I am a striker and many of the games I played in, I played behind the striker and I did not adapt to that position in which I was not used to playing. And that was one of the keys to not being well there.” 

What kind of pressure does Raul de Tomas face as the star of RCD Espanyol?

The star striker thrives under pressure and relishes the expectations. Here’s what he said: “No, I take it as something that motivates me. I am a winning person, I like big challenges and for me it is a privilege to be an icon in this club. My goal is to improve day by day and help this club grow for the future. It motivates me to be the star of RCD Espanyol”

What does Raul de Tomas think of being a striker?

Raul de Tomas enjoys playing his position. He enjoys the satisfaction of the work throughout the week, of everything you leave behind. He is very happy to be able to score goals, he likes being a striker and loves his work.

Does Raul de Tomas perform better in a tighter space?

The striker tries to adapt to all situations. He thinks he can manage well in both facets, both from the back and short, it is true that he creates many goals and there are others that his teammates help him with and he thinks that there must be the balance that a striker must have to be able to score goals.

What part of his game does Raul de Tomas want to improve?

All the coaches in a certain way demand that he defends a little more, that he plays more in harmony with the midfielders and it is an aspect to improve that he has been changing over the years but something he can continue to get better at. He definitely believes that he needs to get better at defending.

Did Raul de Tomas ever think that he will not be able to fulfill his pro football dreams?

The path to success for Raul de Tomas hasn’t been easy. And there were times that were quite tough. Here’s what he had to say on the matter: “Yes, I’ve been through bad times and I think we all think negative things at some point in our lives. In fact, when I left Castilla for Córdoba, it was one of the questions I asked myself. I saw the danger that my profession could be in danger and that is why I changed my attitude and in the end, I was able to carry it out.”

What kind of footballer is Raul de Tomas?

Raul de Tomas is a footballer with numerous strengths and a few weaknesses. A player who tries to make his teammates better and above all tries to score goals, which is his job and what he thinks is what he does best.

Raul de Tomaso: Career lows and highs

Raul de Tomaso’s career low was definitely at Benfica. Those were six very intense months of continuous negativity. He has had several career highs for sure. When he was at Rayo Vallecano, in the Real Madrid youth academy, and now at Espanyol. Basically, Raul de Tomas has had highlights in all his club stints except for the one at Benfica, but nothing matches up to his stellar performance with RCD Espanyol.

How does Raul de Tomaso think that Espanyol can become more consistent?

As of now, Espanyol lacks a bit of consistency and balance in trying to close the games much earlier. The team is quite grateful for where it is now though as they were languishing in LaLiga 2 just a season ago. The entire team is hopeful that this season will also end positively.

How do boxing and meditation help Raul de Tomas?

They are very contradictory. Because boxing gives you some different things that meditation doesn’t give you and on the contrary the same. With boxing, Raul de Tomas feels that he is able to release the tension that he might have from day to day and meditation calms him completely and also serves to pause the stress that he has in his head. The two are very compatible.

Is Raul de Tomas very fond of horses?

Yes, Raul de Tomas has always loved them since he was little. He had always liked having horses, but due to his financial condition, he had not been able to have them, and now he has finally been able to get them. In fact, buying horses was the first thing that Raul de Tomas did after coming to the city of Barcelona.

Is playing in the Qatar World Cup 2022 the biggest dream of Raul de Tomas’ career?

Yes. For him, it would be the greatest achievement in his sports career and according to him, being in a World Cup would be the best. Let’s hope that in a few months we can be talking about how Raul de Tomas can participate in a World Cup and in case it doesn’t happen, we can expect the RCD Espanyol striker to support and encourage the National Team as he always has.

Does playing for RCD Espanyol hurt Raul de Tomas’ national team chances?

In a certain way, it can be detrimental because in the end the leading teams have more competitions, more matches and at times they can have more scoring opportunities, speaking of his facet as a scorer, it can have an influence, but Raul de Tomas has to adapt to what he has and this is how he managed to be in the National Team with Espanyol.