James Rodríguez is a player out of time who brings his best to international stage | Jonathan Wilson

Yesterday at 03:00 PM

The 2014 Golden Boot winner flopped at Everton and faded away at Real Madrid but is still a maestro for Colombia

On Monday, Rayo Vallecano released James Rodríguez on a free transfer. It hadn't been much of a stay. In four and a half months at the club, he managed 136 minutes of league football. Only once did he start in La Liga. Rodríguez is 33 now. Since he left Everton in 2021, he has started just 37 league games and scored only 10 goals. This is the sixth season in a row in which he has been released on a free transfer as he has drifted from Real Madrid to the team currently 12th in the table, via Qatar, Greece and Brazil. The sense is of a waning career nearing its end.

And yet in those three and a half years since his last game for Everton, Rodríguez has played 32 times for Colombia. While at Rayo, he has played 374 international minutes. True, he doesn't often last a full game, but there are few other indications of decline. As Colombia reached the final of last year's Copa América, he was named player of the tournament. His is a career that seems to run on two parallel tracks: at club level he is a fading star, a player who perhaps never quite lived up to his potential. But at international level, while in the autumn of his career, he remains a maestro.