Santiago Munoz has, so far, never helped Newcastle United qualify for the Champions LeagueNewcastle United fans have been doing a double take after learning the name of the young Mexican striker they signed on transfer deadline day – because he sounds like a character from a movie.
Santiago Munoz has joined the club from Santos Laguna on an 18-month loan deal with an option to buy.
Sounds familiar? He will if you’ve seen the 2005 movie Goal! – whose fictional hero is a young Mexican striker who joins Newcastle and is called… Santiago Munez.
In the movie, Munez wins a penalty against Fulham on his Premier League debut, then scores a dramatic free-kick against Liverpool in the final match of the season to take Newcastle into the Champions League.
It’s a lot for Munoz to live up to – especially as he doesn’t have the advantage of a team of movie scriptwriters to help him.
But Newcastle’s new signing – the real one, not the fictional one who ends up dating a nurse played by Anna Friel – has enjoyed a promising start to his career.
As a youth international, he scored five goals as Mexico won the Concacaf Under-17 Championships in 2019.
He then made his club debut for Santos Laguna last season and scored three goals in 13 league games, registering three assists.
It’s not the first time a footballer has emerged with a name echoing one already out there in the world of fiction.
In 1994, Jonathan Coe’s novel What A Carve Up was published with a central character called Michael Owen, three years before the striker of the same name made his Liverpool debut.
And in 2007, David Mitchell co-starred with comedy partner Robert Webb in the film Magicians as an illusionist called… Harry Kane.
At the time, the future England captain was still a Tottenham schoolboy.
So can Munoz provide a blockbuster storyline for Newcastle’s season? They might need him to, given that two of their final four matches are against Liverpool and Manchester City…
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