A few years ago, Raul de Tomas was one of the most promising young Spanish players of the moment, then he quickly became one of La Liga's sure values as an attacker. The Spanish-Dominican scored goals with the Real Madrid youth teams, then did the same during his various adventures away from the Bernabéu, such as his first two seasons at Rayo (38 goals in total) and this brilliant 2021/2022 financial year with Espanyol, during which he scored no less than 17 goals in the league. There was a failure at Benfica, who still spent 30 million euros to afford it in 2019, but RTD clearly stood out for being a monster of consistency, so much so that he even had a few caps with La Roja (4) and clubs like Manchester United were interested in him.
Things started to get tough in the summer of 2022, after a complicated summer, since Espanyol did not want to let him leave, refusing all offers… before the last day of the transfer window. The documents for his transfer from the Catalan club to Rayo, however, arrived a few minutes too late during the deadline dayand he therefore had to wait until January 2023 to begin his second adventure in Vallecas. A half-season gap which did him a lot of harm, since he had difficulty really launching his season afterwards. The following year, 2023/2024, was particularly bad, with only one goal in 25 Spanish league games. Insufficient performance for the highest salary in the history of the Madrid club, and for a player who many considered to be an important potential 9 in the selection. This season, the 30-year-old striker has still not played a single minute… A total disappearance, both figuratively and literally.
No one has heard from since the fall
In fact, no one has heard from him anymore. “Our WhatsApp messages are not reaching him”explained teammates last December to the media Relevowhile his account Instagram has been silent for months. Publicly, no one has seen him since November 24, when he was on the bench for that match against Sevilla, and since then, he has not even trained with his teammates. It's as if he had simply disappeared from the face of the earth. Even if the club's high-ranking leaders have details that they logically do not reveal publicly – “the team medical services are monitoring him. He is not injured, he has another illness”confided President Raul Martin Presa on December 4 – no one really knows what is going on. If the excuse of a flu was put forward at the beginning, inevitably, it does not hold up over time, and the Spanish media timidly mention mental health problems.
In any case, since then, tongues have been loosened on his case. Sources from Rayo Vallecano but also from former clubs paint the portrait of a player with an oversized ego, nonchalant and overall not very helpful to the team, ignoring the instructions of his coaches, particularly when they asked him to defend. Far from being an exemplary teammate in short. Quite sulphurous attitudes which have not harmed him so far since he was performing well on the pitch, but which logically come back to the table now that things are going badly and his coach Iñigo Pérez is not counting on him this season.“If you don’t make him play, he will behave like a little child, getting angry with everyone”revealed a source from his entourage to the media The Confidential not long ago.
A dark hidden side
This does not necessarily explain or minimize the problems he could be going through at the moment, but the Spanish press explains that De Tomas was just a time bomb that was going to explode in the first somewhat complicated pass. In addition, the media Relevo recently revealed that in 2017, he had tested positive for doping and that the Federation had hidden it, giving him a small suspension of one month which had not been revealed to the public. Behind the goals in spades and the rather friendly attitude in front of the media, hides a Raul de Tomas with a much darker side.
At the age of 30, when he should be at his peak primeprobably starting in the Spanish selection and in a big club competing in the European Cups, Raul de Tomas is in a dead end from which it seems to be very difficult to escape. “We tried to help him, but he got into a loop”confided his teammate Isi to Lucas Vazquez, his former teammate at Real Madrid, on December 17. Since then, a month later, we still do not know where De Tomas is, nor what ailments he is suffering from. Will he play again with Rayo Vallecano? Will he leave this winter? End of career? The affair fascinates Spain and everything indicates that this soap opera has some twists and turns in store for us…