FACTFILE: Borja Baston

11th August

Borja Baston has built a reputation in Spain for scoring goals wherever he goes.
If he can keep that up in the Premier League, the club-record fee it has taken to bring him to Swansea City will look like money well spent.
The deal which has brought Borja from Atletico Madrid surpasses the £12 million-plus package the Swans stumped up to land Wilfried Bony from Vitesse Arnhem back in 2013.
Borja has never previously sampled English football, so in that sense he arrives with something to prove.
But the 23-year-old has already shown that he is capable of performing in new surroundings.
Borja has spent time on loan at no fewer than five Spanish clubs since making his one and only senior appearance for Atletico Madrid as a teenager just over six years ago.
And in each of those temporary stints away from his parent club, he has displayed his prowess in front of goal.
The son of a former professional footballer - goalkeeper Miguel Baston, who was once on the books of Atletico himself - Borja's talent was apparent from a very young age.
He joined Atletico's youth set-up at the age of just four, initially playing in goal before he decided to try his luck as an outfield player. Shrewd move.



By the time he was 17, Borja was regarded as such an exciting prospect that he was given a maiden first-team chance as a substitute against Getafe back in May 2010.
Yet cruelly, he had been on the pitch for only around 20 minutes when an unfortunate slip led to a ruptured cruciate ligament.
After seven months on the sidelines, Borja returned to football with Atletico's B side, before his first loan spell came in the Spanish second tier with Real Murcia.
Next Borja gained some more experience at SD Huesca, then he helped Deportivo La Coruna win to promotion to La Liga courtesy of 10 league goals in 2013-14.
His next stop was Real Zaragoza, where he really began to turn heads by scoring 23 times in one campaign.
After thriving in Zaragoza, Borja got a long-awaited second chance in La Liga when he joined an unfancied Eibar side on a season-long loan in July last year.
The step up to the top division proved to be no problem. Borja netted 18 goals in 36 league appearances for an Eibar team who ended up in mid-table, prompting many observers to suggest that Atletico could have done with him as part of their squad.
But after the summer arrivals of Kevin Gameiro and Nicolas Gaitan, it became apparent that Atletico boss Diego Simeone was not about to give Borja a chance at the Vicente Calderon Stadium.
Hence he has left his boyhood club once again, and this time - for the first time - on a permanent basis.
A number of Premier League clubs, as well sides in Germany and Spain, had been credited with an interest in a player looks built for English football.
At 6ft 3in, Borja brings physical presence, but he is also a mobile frontman who is capable of running the channels as well as holding the ball up.
And Borja has shown time and again that when a chance comes his way, he can finish.
 
READ MORE . . .


Club
Home
Related News