Hugo González returns to Mestalla as Celta threat to his boyhood club | OneFootball

Hugo González returns to Mestalla on Saturday, three years to the day after his LaLiga debut there, now under Claudio Giráldez and seen as a threat to his boyhood club. AS reports that the 23-year-old has forced his way into Celta's first team after a prolific summer.

González scored six in five friendlies, finishing pre-season as Celta's leading scorer. Recent traffic between the clubs has included Maxi Gómez, Santi Mina, Daniel Wass and Unai Núñez, and André Almeida could be next.

At 23 he can no longer play for the B team, so Giráldez kept him up. He drove Celta Fortuna's June promotion to Segunda, then carried that streak into summer.

Raised at Valencia after starting at Cracks aged six, he was first called up at 18 and played his first professional minutes at 20 under Rubén Baraja alongside Quinta del Pipo peers Javi Guerra, Diego López and Christian Mosquera.

In 2023-24 he made nine league outings and one in the Copa del Rey, producing one Bernabéu assist and no goals before a loan to Cartagena. A January 2025 move to Celta Fortuna brought five goals and three assists, leading to a permanent deal that left Valencia with 30% of a future sale.

He then struck 18 goals, four in the play-offs, to deliver Fortuna's first-ever rise to Segunda. Giráldez, who used him twice last season, could start him on the right at Mestalla, where he is competing with Jones El-Abdellaoui and Iago Aspas.

Source: AS

“Artificial intelligence was used to assist in creating this article based on reporting from the original source quoted.”