Jesús de Miguel, a goal worker who made his dream come true

BarcelonaJesús de Miguel Alameda's dream was to be a professional soccer player. And after many years of working hard, he had finally achieved it. The death of the Tenerife forwardhas shocked the world of football and left the friends he had made in cities like Castellón, Salamanca and, especially, Madrid, heartbroken.

Born in Madrid on September 21, 1996, De Miguel saw how different football schools and academies of well-known Madrid clubs did not want him when he went to try out as a child. His path to professional football was complicated: he had to wander around dirt fields and synthetic turf in almost all the neighborhoods of the Spanish capital. De Miguel started at the modest CDE Lugo in Fuenlabrada, from where he moved on to the Leganés youth system, where he reached the reserve team. But the club did not give him an opportunity with the first team, so he left for Club de Fútbol Internacional de Madrid in the Third Division, a newly created club in the north of the Spanish capital that had an ambitious project. In fact, with this team, he achieved the first of his many promotions, in this case to the Segunda B. A promotion he achieved at the stadium where he lost his life, the Heliodoro Rodríguez López, against the Tenerife reserve team.

Promotion specialist

De Miguel began a pilgrimage through clubs that wanted to move up a category. In 2018 he went to Fuenlabrada, which wanted to promote to the Second Division, but they loaned him to Unión Adarve. In 2019 he signed for Navalcarnero and another promotion to the Second Division B arrived, in which he scored the key goal. In 2021 he left Madrid upon being recruited by Unionistas de Salamanca, a club owned by the members of the Castilian city in which he became one of the heroes of a fanbase that valued his combative character. His goals in Salamanca caught the attention of a historic club like Castellón, which signed him in January 2023 during the winter transfer window. He played three years with the orellut team and achieved the long-awaited promotion to the Second Division in 2024. At 29 years old, De Miguel was finally able to debut in professional football in the Second Division with Castellón, where he scored 25 goals.

In 2025, Demi, as he was known by his friends, left the orellut club and agreed to return to a lower category, the Primera RFEF, upon receiving an offer from another historic club like Tenerife, which had suffered a traumatic relegation. Married with a daughter, De Miguel understood that at 30 years old it was a great opportunity, due to the quality of life in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, the salary, and the entity's social base. And it was a success. Sharing the forward line with the Catalan Enric Gallego, De Miguel became one of the key players in the promotion to the Second Division. This season he had not been playing much due to pubalgia problems he had been suffering from for years.

Although some coaches had suggested he play in other positions, taking advantage of the fact that he was tall and strong –he was 1.89 meters tall–, he always insisted on being a striker. He loved scoring goals, and he had become a fearsome rival who knew how to use his body to hunt down crosses. In Tenerife, he lived the dream of being a professional, playing against historic clubs and in a big stadium. A dream for which he had worked hard chasing balls on neighborhood pitches in Madrid when he was young.