Whether it’s at club or international level, Spain is almost inarguably one of the most dominant countries in the world when it comes to soccer.
The UNM men’s soccer team now has a little piece of that distinction.
Rafa Jimenez, a 20-year-old from Madrid, Spain, came to New Mexico a month ago to join the Lobos. The central defender is bringing vast experience in different levels of the sport.
“This is a new stage in my life and I’m very excited,” Jimenez said. “(At UNM) you have to be really fit and really focused on everything. It’s not just the soccer part, it’s also the academic part. Exercise your brain and your ability to manage more than one thing. I think this will help me a lot in my future.”
His journey with soccer began around the same time he started walking. His father, Rafa Jimenez Sr., said he can’t remember a time when his son wasn’t interested in the game.
“I guess it is a natural instinct for every boy since the age of three to kick a soccer ball around all day here in Spain,” he said. “Rafa was no different. Since I can remember, as a small boy he was always running around all day kicking a ball.”
Jimenez, Sr. said he and his son would spend several hours every week practicing in their yard. He noticed that his son had a “particular and distinctive talent” and decided to help him make the most of it.
“So at the age of eight I took him to the Real Madrid academy to get a feeling of what it would be like to train and play in an important team,” he said. “The first thing the coaches noticed was his intensity and desire to always do better and better.”
That got the ball rolling, and Jimenez hasn’t looked back.
Since then, he has gotten some minutes with academies like Club Atletico de Madrid and Villarreal CF. Right before coming to UNM, Jimenez was playing third division with Fuenlabrada.
Jimenez also has experience playing at an international level, but not with Spain.
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His father was born in Australia, which allowed Jimenez to play for the Australian youth national team at the U-19 and U-20 levels.
Two years ago, Jimenez experienced some groin pain and was forced to get surgery. It was a tough time for the defender, but his father said he handled it well.
“His persistence, hard work and desire to succeed after a real bad injury-prone year, where others would have thrown in the towel, assures me that success is only a matter of time,” he said.
Jimenez said the reason he started looking into playing at collegiate level was because he and his parents decided that it would be smart to pursue both a college and a soccer career.
He is currently studying business and said that if that’s what he ends up doing for the rest of his life, he wants to climb as high as he can and become his own boss.
“I would like to have my own company and try to administrate it. Maybe like some sports company or something in relation with sports,” he said.
But of course, Jimenez’s most ambitious dream has to do with soccer.
“I would like to play first division in Spain, that’s my dream,” he said. “But I know it’s really difficult so I focus on being good every day and going step by step, just trying my best. When I get to my highest level, if it’s first division Spain it would be great. If it’s first division in the U.S., that would also be good.”
Isabel Gonzalez is a sports reporter for the Daily Lobo. She mainly covers men’s soccer and basketball. She can be reached at sports@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @cisabelg.
