Fifteen years after he made the move from Guadalajara to Manchester United, Javier Hernandez remains one of the Premier League's greatest North American imports.
The striker became the first Mexican player to win the English top flight, bagging two winners’ medals during his five-year spell at Old Trafford, during which time he netted 59 times in 157 appearances for the club.
Hernandez also enjoyed a two-year stint at West Ham and would go on to be ranked at no.8 in FourFourTwo’s list of the greatest North American footballers ever, but admits that he could barely believe what was happening when he made his 2010 move across the Atlantic.
Hernandez opens up on his ‘surreal’ Manchester United move
“It was like a movie!” Hernandez tells FourFourTwo. “Everything that happened was surreal. I didn’t know anything and then my dad had a meeting with Jim Lawlor, the chief scout. I couldn’t believe it. I cried.
“We kept the whole story a secret because Manchester United thought they could get a bargain and didn’t want other teams to find out. At first, I couldn’t even tell my agent or the rest of my family. When I saw Jim, I felt for the first time, ‘This is real’.
“One day, he called me while I was driving. I pulled over to answer and I heard Sir Alex Ferguson! That Scottish accent was so tough to understand on the phone!
“He wanted to make sure I knew how much they wanted me. Manchester United agreeing to play the first game at Chivas’ new stadium helped so much with the negotiations.”
This move came after his dad reportedly quit his job as reserve team boss of Chivas because they refused him permission to travel to watch 'Chicharito' at the 2010 World Cup.
“It wasn’t exactly like that; it was a mix of things,” Hernandez explains. “I was going to the World Cup, then leaving for Manchester. I asked my parents and my sister to come to live with me. My dad was working so he had to resign to watch me play for Mexico, then live with me. I felt a lot of gratitude – there are no words to describe what my family were willing to do for me.”
But what was it like for a 22-year-old to swap Mexico for Manchester, given the climate and culinary differences between the two places?
“I’m so grateful that I lived in Manchester because it made me realise I could live anywhere in the world – for five or six months of the year, you don’t see the sun! I enjoyed it so much, but it was a complete shock.
"After my presentation as a Manchester United player, my life changed completely.
"I’m not the best Mexican player ever – for me, it’s Hugo Sanchez, then Rafa Marquez – but I might be the most famous. I never thought about the number of eyes there would be on me, but I’m still Javier. There’s a layer before Chicharito, and that’s the most important one."
