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Mark OgdenJul 5, 2025, 07:42 PM ET
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. -- A Real Madrid star is stealing the show at the FIFA Club World Cup, just as FIFA would have wanted, but nobody would have expected Gonzalo García to be the player that is driving Los Blancos to glory in the United States.
Kylian Mbappé's spectacular scissor kick goal in stoppage time in Saturday's 3-2 quarterfinal win against Borussia Dortmund was the moment that will lead the Play of the Day clips, but the tie had already been won by that stage and that was down to García's first-half contribution while the France forward was watching from the substitutes' bench.
Not for the first time in this competition, the youngster outshone his more celebrated teammates, and a first-half goal from Fran García's cross moved him alongside Benfica's Ángel Di María and Al Hilal's Marcos Leonardo at the top of the scoring charts in the tournament with four goals.
At the start of the tournament last month, if a Real forward was going to win the Golden Boot, the leading candidates would surely have been Mbappé, Vinícius Júnior, or even attacking midfielder Jude Bellingham.
But García is in pole position to claim that prize going into Wednesday's semifinal against Paris Saint-Germain, especially with Di María and Leonardo both now eliminated from the Club World Cup, and if the 21-year-old does fly back to Madrid after the tournament with the Golden Boot tucked into his luggage, it will only further emphasize the club's attacking options going into the new season.
Yet when the serious business of LaLiga and the UEFA Champions League begins for Madrid, a Golden Boot won during a heady summer in the U.S. may count for little when it comes to García's prospects of earning game time at the Santiago Bernabéu.
Harsh, perhaps, but that's how it works at Real. The big stars -- Mbappé, Vini Jr., Bellingham -- are virtually guaranteed a starting spot, no matter which coach is in charge, and a Club World Cup Golden Boot won't transform García from a promising home-grown player into a Galactico.
Apart from club legends Raúl and Emilio Butragueño, Real have a woeful record when it comes to developing -- and then playing -- young strikers who have scored goals aplenty for the club's junior teams.
Over the past 30 to 40 years, a long list of young goal scorers have threatened to make the breakthrough at Real, only to see their path blocked by some of the game's biggest stars, such as Ronaldo Nazario, Ruud van Nistelrooy, Michael Owen, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema.
Alvaro Negredo, Juan Mata, Jesé, José Callejón, Joselu, Pablo Sarabia and Roberto Soldado all showed promise in Real's youth teams, some also for the B team Castilla, before having to take their talents elsewhere.
So the question hovering over García is whether he will ultimately be headed down the same route or if he can break the mould and be more like Raúl and Butragueño.
Before the Club World Cup, García had made six senior appearances for Real without scoring, but he has now scored four goals in five games in the U.S, and also registered an assist, so he is grabbing his chance to impress.
García also scored 30 goals in 73 appearances for Castilla, who play in Spain's third tier, so he knows how to find the back of the net, but the Real first team is a serious step up from Castilla.
Yet at the Club World Cup, he has shown himself to be more than a squad filler. He can score goals, he has exceptional movement, great awareness, and, perhaps most importantly for recently-arrived coach Xabi Alonso, he works incredibly hard with and without the ball.
Alonso has publicly stated that he wants more of that from Mbappé, a player whose work-rate has always been nowhere near his talent level, and his faith in García during this tournament might just be a deliberate ploy to make Mbappé realize what he must add to his game.
Had Mbappé not been forced to miss Real's three group games after being hospitalized by acute gastroenteritis last month, García might have spent this tournament watching from the bench, getting only brief minutes at the end of games.
But instead, he has clocked up 379 minutes from a possible 450 in five games and genuinely played his part. He has emerged as an unexpected star of the tournament.
He has some serious talent to compete with, however. Mbappé, Vini Jr., Rodrygo and Endrick, the Brazilian teenager, will all be in the mix for three attacking positions, so Alonso has a big decision to make when all are fit and available.
But from his performances in this competition, García will have seen his stock rise and there will now be a queue of clubs across Europe's big leagues who would gladly add him to their squad next season, either permanently or on loan.
So Real are in a win-win situation because García has made himself more valuable to the team on the pitch as well as to the club off it.
But with Alonso in charge and ready to stamp his authority on the squad, García might just have a future at Real that he wouldn't have had under previous coaches.
