Everton fans never got to see James Rodriguez at Goodison Park but he won the Golden Boot with Colombia at the 2014 World Cup and is back playing in the current finals
James Rodriguez says he drank the bottle of Echo Falls wine given to him by an Everton fan but Blues fans supporters never got the chance to see him play in a competitive game
James Rodriguez says he drank the bottle of Echo Falls wine given to him by an Everton fan but Blues fans supporters never got the chance to see him play in a competitive game
View 3 Images
The ECHO’s Christopher Beesley continues his daily series of articles on Everton and the World Cup running throughout the tournament in the United States of America, Canada and Mexico
Turning out 26 times for Everton and scoring six goals, James Rodriguez was arguably the greatest player that Blues fans never saw but claims he wishes he’d stayed longer.
A global superstar with over 50million Instagram followers, James was snapped up for the third time during his career by Carlo Ancelotti to play for Everton in September 2020, completing a free transfer from Real Madrid.
However, coronavirus restrictions forced most of the games that season to be played behind closed doors and on the few occasions that a limited number of spectators were allowed into grounds – including the final home game of the campaign when the Blues were still chasing a place in Europe but his manager had allowed the playmaker to return to Colombia to prepare for Copa America, a tournament he subsequently wasn’t picked for – James was always absent.
He did play in front of fans in a pre-season friendly against Manchester United at Old Trafford the following summer plus Everton’s trip to Orlando where they won the Florida Cup but not once did Goodison Park patrons observe him in the flesh.
Speaking to the club’s official YouTube channel in 2024, some four years on from signing, James lifted the lid on what he did with a bottle of wine handed to him by an Evertonian on County Road while sharing regrets over his departure.
Asked if he remembered being given the Echo Falls, he said: “Yes, as I was leaving after the game, the guy spotted me and came right up to me and said: ‘Hang on, hang on, I’ve got something for you’, and he handed me a bottle of red! I remember we’d just won our first home game, so he gave me the wine and, of course, I drank it at home.”
With Ancelotti, a manager who had signed him twice before at Real Madrid and Bayern Munich, returning to the Bernabeu at the end of the season, James found himself surplus to requirements under Rafael Benitez having previously clashed with the fellow Hispanophone while in the Spanish capital. The result was a switch to Qatari club Al-Rayyan for an undisclosed fee.
James said: “I’ve spoken about this in interviews before and I didn’t want to leave the club either, but the new manager had arrived, and we all know who that is, and he said I wasn’t going to feature in his plans. I never wanted to leave, that much is obvious, I felt I could have gone on to play two or three seasons more at the club but it’s plain to see that the manager said that he wouldn’t be wanting me to be involved at all.
“The supporters wanted me to stay, and so did I, but in the end, that’s just football for you. What happened then is now all in the past, but it was a real shame because I believed that I could have gone on to achieve more in my time at Everton Football Club. I feel like I could have brought more happiness to the fans.”
The Everton and the World Cup series sees Christopher Beesley writing about the Blues' links with the tournament throughout the 2026 finals
The Everton and the World Cup series sees Christopher Beesley writing about the Blues' links with the tournament throughout the 2026 finals
View 3 Images
James shot to fame on the biggest stage of all when winning the Golden Boot at the 2014 World Cup finals in Brazil.
Kicking off in Belo Horizonte, home city of his future Everton team-mate Bernard, James ran the show for Colombia in a 3-0 thrashing of Greece. Setting up both of the first two goals for Pablo Amero and Teófilo Gutiérrez (Teo), he then netted himself with a low shot some three minutes into stoppage time to cap a man-of-the-match display.
Moving on to the capital city Brasilia, he headed Colombia into the lead against the Ivory Coast on 64 minutes before providing the assist for Juan Quintero some six minutes later in a 2-1 win.
With Colombia’s place in the knockout stages secured, James was rested to the bench for their third group game against Japan in tropical Fortaleza in Brazil’s far north by the equator.
Brought on as a substitute at the start of the second half with the score deadlocked at 1-1 at the interval, his introduction tipped the balance as he laid on two goals for Jackson Martinez before getting himself on to the scoresheet in the final minute to seal a 4-1 victory.
From there it was on to Rio de Janeiro and the spiritual home of Brazilian football at the Maracana for an all-South American clash with Uruguay, at the stadium where their opponents had won the World Cup some 64 years earlier.
Uruguayan football prides itself on possessing the supposedly unique spirit of ‘Garra’ (the claw), emphasising battling qualities, but they found their talons blunted on this occasion against James’ brilliance. He netted both goals in a 2-0 success with his opener – a stunning left-foot volley after chesting the ball down – later voted the best goal of the tournament by more than four million fans on FIFA’s website.
The strike also earned James the FIFA Puskas Award for the best goal of the year and for his part, opposition coach Oscar Tabarez declared that it was one of the greatest goals he had ever seen. On James’ ability, he said: “For me, special talents are those who do things that are completely out of the ordinary.
“Diego Maradona, Lionel Messi, Luis Suarez, James Rodriguez – they do things because they have certain gifts that make them special. I believe he’s the best player at the World Cup and I don’t think I’m exaggerating; he’s a young player.
“We tried to limit his influence, but he kept going and made his presence felt. Hopefully he’ll continue to progress, because he’s very young. Football needs players with these characteristics.”
World Cup matches in tropical Fortaleza are not for the faint-hearted if super-sized flying insects put you off your game!
World Cup matches in tropical Fortaleza are not for the faint-hearted if super-sized flying insects put you off your game!(Image: FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
View 3 Images
James would be on target again in the quarter-finals back in Fortaleza with a penalty and was famously photographed celebrating his strike with a giant locust that had landed on his arm.
It was his sixth goal of the tournament and ensured he remained one ahead of Thomas Muller from winners Germany for the Golden Boot. However, a 2-1 defeat to hosts Brazil proved the end of the road for Colombia’s hopes of team glory.
James though was widely expected to land a personal double in the shape of the Golden Ball for the best player of the tournament but that controversially went to Argentina’s Messi who had failed to score in the knockout stages.
Even the Barcelona icon’s compatriot Maradona, who secured the prize for his displays in the 1986 finals, insisted James had performed better, claiming that “marketing people” had chosen the wrong man and called the decision “unfair.”
For his part, the then-FIFA president Sepp Blatter commented that he was “a little bit surprised” by the decision.
Nevertheless, from then on, life would never be the same for James David Rodriguez Rubio, who now, a week shy of his 35th birthday, plays his club football for Minnesota United in Major League Soccer and tonight James is looking to beat Switzerland to take his country into the quarter-finals of the 2026 World Cup.
Today’s games – Round of 16: Argentina v Egypt, 5pm (Atlanta); Switzerland v Colombia, 9pm (Vancouver).