Jesús de Miguel, the Madrid player who decided to stay in Tenerife

Jesús de Miguel Alameda, Demi, was just 16 years old when he first wrote about Tenerife. It was January 2013, and the social network was X, then still called Twitter. A friend was telling him about a student trip to the Canary Island, planned for that summer, and he jokingly replied: “If you tell me and I pass all of them, I'm going to Tenerife.” Thirteen years later, Tenerife was his home and the Heliodoro Rodríguez López was his stadium. It was on that grass, on which he celebrated two promotions, where on Monday he was attacked by the Andorra goalkeeper, Jesús Owono. He died this Tuesday morning, at the age of 30, at the Nuestra Señora de La Candelaria Hospital. De Miguel was married and the father of a one and a half year old girl.

Miguel Alameda was born in Madrid on September 21, 1996. Center forward, left-handed, about 1.90 meters tall. “I define myself as a hardworking, team forward,” he spoke of himself in July 2025 following his signing for the blue and white club. In his incessant publications on social networks when he was a teenager, he did not hide his idolatry for Real Madrid. “Great Madrid, great Modric and great Diego Lopez!!!!!!”, he tweeted euphorically on March 5, 2013, after the white team's 1-2 victory over Manchester United at Old Trafford. “What a great Christian!!!!”, he exclaimed in another post during Madrid's 1-6 victory against Galatasaray.

He, however, carved out a more modest career, far from those big spotlights. He trained in Lugo Fuenlabrada and in the Leganés youth academy. In 2015 he moved up to the Pepinero subsidiary, in the Third Division. He didn't make it to the first team. His transition continued through Madrid and Castilian sports in pursuit of his dream of becoming a professional. It was in one of those training seasons when he first set foot on the Heliodoro. And he did it as a rival. In May 2018, Internacional de Madrid played the promotion final against Tenerife B in Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The 1-1 win gave the Madrid club the first promotion to Second B in its history.

Then came the Fuenlabrada, the Unión Adarve and the Navalcarnero. In Unionistas de Salamanca he stood out as a scorer, after scoring 12 goals in the 2021-2022 season. There he met what would become one of his best friends, defender Fernando Román. Román, currently in Talavera, remembered him emotionally this Tuesday on his

That season at Unionistas opened the door to Castellón, in January 2023, where he arrived for 150,000 euros. There he shared a locker room with Pablo Hernández, the current coach of the team that is the leader of the second category. “One of the best people I have met in football,” he told Efe this Tuesday. Another of his teammates in that Castellón, the Puerto Rican Jeremy De León - currently at UE Sant Andreu - has also expressed his pain on social networks. “One of the best friends that football gave me, rest in peace brother.”

That season in Castellón he stopped being a passing forward. In 2023-2024 he was the top scorer in Group II of the First Federation: 16 goals and 6 assists in 38 games. An exercise that culminated with promotion to Second.

His performance, however, declined in the silver category. During that year in the Second Division he only scored three goals in 35 games. When the summer holidays arrived, he returned to Primera RFEF to join CD Tenerife, that club on the island that he visited in the summer of 2013. El Tete signed him in July 2025 and gave him a contract until 2028. “I never saw it as a step back,” he declared to Cadena Ser on October 15, 2025. “I am 100% dead with Tenerife.”

He more than demonstrated it: his start was unprecedented in the club since the marks of Enrique Vicedo in the sixties and Aridane Santana in the 2012-2013 season: six hits in the first five days, which earned him the nickname in the stands of the Heliodoro de Jesús de Migoles. The forward closed that season with 11 goals in 29 league games, Tenerife became group champion and returned to the Second Division. It was the fourth promotion of De Miguel's career. For the player, however, happiness was not complete: pubalgia, from which he did not recover until after the summer, had reduced his performance and had kept him off the playing fields several days earlier.

At the end of the season, his future seemed uncertain. Part of the local media gauged the advantages of a transfer and, in fact, at the end of the season he received offers to go to clubs such as Real Zaragoza or Sociedad Deportiva Huesca. His physical problems and his will finally made him stay on the island he knew as a teenager. On Monday, De Miguel entered the field in the 57th minute in search of a first goal of the season that would ensure his dream: establishing himself in professional football.