Raul Jimenez is firmly established as a fan favorite and key player at Wolverhampton Wanderers, but the 29-year-old Mexican striker had no idea where the team played a little over two years ago.
Wolves' 2019-2020 players' player of the season had to investigate the club and its whereabouts when he heard about the interest from the team in the summer of 2018, while he was preparing for the World Cup.
"About Wolverhampton, I didn't know [where it was]," said Jimenez in a talk with the Mexican embassy in the UK. "I only knew London. With the national team I had to go to Newcastle, Wales, I knew a little about England, but Wolves and Birmingham I did not know anything.
"I knew about teams from England, but I even asked where Wolverhampton played and they told me, 'Well, in Wolverhampton,'" said Jimenez, laughing, before replying: "'Oh, it's a city?'"
Wolves approached the then-Benfica forward Jimenez when he was with the Mexico national team in Denmark ahead of Russia 2018, where club officials talked to him about their vision for the future and how he would fit in.
"When I got the offer I thought that [Wolves] was not a well-known team," said Jimenez. "I investigated properly and it was an interesting gamble to join a recently promoted team; it's one that to this day I do not regret taking. From the first season we have done well to be amongst the best in the English league."
Jimenez came into Wolves with some doubts surrounding how he would fare in the Premier League, given he'd failed to become a regular starter at both Benfica and Atletico Madrid, but the Tepeji native has gone on to become a crowd favorite and one of the league's best strikers with 32 goals in 78 games since he joined.
