The strange case of the Espanyol player who is the top scorer in his province

BarcelonaEspanyol has started the 2025-26 season with its usual preseason stay in Torremirona and with many new facesOne of them is veteran striker Kike García, who Fran Garagarza has signed as a free agent after scoring 13 goals with Alavés, and who made his debut as a blue and white player last Saturday with a hat trick against Peralada.

He is originally from Motilla del Palancar, a rural town in the province of Cuenca that in recent years has become a technological hub thanks to the location of the German company Mahle, which produces electronic components for automobiles, in the municipality. "About 6,500 people live there, but during the week many people come from outside to work in the factories," explains José Amoraga, a close friend of Kike García, the most illustrious resident of a town internationally recognized for its industrial activity: "The football field bears his name and he has often been asked to be the town crier."

"In Motilla we support Kike's team. More than Barça or Madrid, what we see most are the shirts of the teams where he has played – Murcia, Middlesbrough, Eibar, Osasuna and Alavés – with his name on them. Now we'll buy the Espanyol one, that is beautiful" says Amoraga, a director of the local club, Motilla CF, where the current Perico striker began scoring goals. "I played with him as a child until he signed for Quintanar del Rey, a higher-division team from a nearby town. We lost our first game 15-1 to some older kids, and he scored from midfield," recalls the director, who changes the playing times of the first team, a regional preferential team, whenever they coincide with the club where his friend plays.

"It's a lot of town. A lot of Motilla. Whenever he has a vacation, he comes to see his family and group of friends. Last year his visit coincided with a derby against Campillo de Altobuey, and he was cheering on the field like any other fan. In fact, every year he sends us as many shirts as we play at home for us to raffle off. For a small club, the proceeds from the raffles are very important, and he helps us a lot." "It's like he's one of our sponsors," says Amoraga about Kike García, who moves away from the stereotype of an elite footballer and who, every time he returns home, takes the opportunity to go harvest olives with his brothers and play petanque with the neighbors. For all this, he has earned the nickname "El striker of the people either the goal worker, and Manolo González asked Fran Garagarza last year, who coincided with him in Eibar, who got him his shirt after the Alavés-Espanyol match.

The top scorer in his province

At 35 years old, Kike García has played 289 La Liga matches and scored 58 goals, an absolute record in his province. This is an exceptional feat considering that only 22 players from Cuenca have made their debut in the First Division. Many people live here, and even fewer in the villages. Sports infrastructure is also surely lacking. And it should be added that no team from Cuenca has ever made it to the professional football league—it is one of the five provinces that have never reached the Second Division. Antonio López Alfaro, an absolute legend of Albacete, who played in the First Division in the 90s with him as captain and Benito Floro as coach, and the second player in the region with the most La Liga matches (119).

"If you stand out a bit, you have to leave. Kike García went to Murcia and I went to Albacete," explains the former Iniesta player, the town where the Espanyol striker's wife is from. "The thing is, we're in a more open Spain and the biggest club nearby is, precisely, Albacete, more than 70 kilometers away. Not all the kids can afford to travel so far back and forth every day," adds Amoraga, who claims that of the 22 elite footballers in Cuenca, two are from Motilla del Palancar.

"Apart from Kike, Alejandro Antón Blasco also made his debut. He hung up his gloves a while ago and now he's a teacher in the town and is the goalkeeping coach at Motilla CF," happily declares the director and former teammate of the club where Kike García was trained, who will soon be wearing the blue and white of a town that from now on will wear the colors of Espanyol.