Goalscorer Raúl Jiménez has achieved memorable moments with the Mexican national team and the clubs for which he has played. In this 2026 World Cup, he scored his first goal in the World Cup in El Tri's debut against South Africa on June 11. This Tuesday he scored the second goal of Mexico's 2-0 victory over Ecuador in the round of 32.

But there is one match in particular that Jiménez literally has no memory of.

On the afternoon of Saturday, November 29, 2020, Jiménez was leading the offensive of Wolverhampton of the English Premier League, in a match against Arsenal.

"What I remember is that we arrived at the stadium and I went out to see the field. And I went back to the locker room... I don't remember anything else," said the Mexican in a documentary produced by Wolves Studios and broadcast by the BBC in 2021.

On the contrary, his coach at the time, Nuno Espírito Santo, says that what happened that afternoon “will remain forever” in his memory: “The noise [hits the palm of his hand with a fist] will remain.”

And in a corner kick in favor of the Wolves, Jiménez and rival defender David Luiz had a very strong clash of heads, which caused a dry sound that was clearly heard in the empty stadium due to the restrictions of the covid-19 pandemic.

“I knew immediately that he was seriously injured,” says team doctor Matt Perry. Luiz was also injured, but not like the Mexican.

“We were very afraid and then you start hearing: 'Code red, code red,'” Espírito Santo says, holding back tears. “And I was just wondering, ‘What is code red?'”

It was a serious emergency. The blow left Jiménez unconscious on the field of play, which caused a large mobilization of players and coaching staff. Medical services immediately immobilized him in the field and took him to a hospital.

The forward suffered a skull fracture and a brain hemorrhage that put his life at risk.

He underwent successful surgery and was hospitalized for five days, but that was just the beginning of a long recovery.

“I remember that, when I left the hospital, Daniela and Arya [wife and daughter, newborn] were waiting for me and received me with a lot of love,” says Jiménez. "I never thought about finishing my career or stopping playing. I always trusted that I could come back."

Protection for your head

It took the forward eight months to play again, in August 2021.

With a cranial fracture and the uncertainty of receiving another blow from a rival, or making a header, he had to adapt to his new reality.

Initially he used a semi-rigid protection that covered a good part of his head and that allowed him to keep the area of ​​his right temple, where he suffered the fracture, safe.

It took him several more months to regain his scoring level, both in the English Premier League (in which he scored again 301 days after the day of his injury), and in the national team.

His participation in the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, where he suffered another muscle injury, was limited to 56 minutes, without scoring goals.

Since returning to the courts, Jiménez has worn several protective headbands that serve the same function as the first: protecting his head in general, but with an additional padded area on the part of his right temple where he had the fracture.

Unlike other players who have worn extensive head protection, such as Czech goalkeeper Petr Čech or Romanian defender Cristian Chivu, Jiménez's headband was custom-made, allowing him wide mobility.

The scorer always had an accurate header, but since his injury he seemed to limit this resource. Even so, he scored almost a dozen such goals in the Premier League between 2023-26.

In fact, for the 2026 World Cup, Jiménez had a dream debut with Mexico by scoring, with a header, the second goal in the 2-0 victory over South Africa.

It was his first goal in a World Cup and it came a few months after his father's death, something that moved him to tears during the celebration.

And in the last victory of the Mexican team, which beat Ecuador 2-0 in the round of 32, Jiménez was once again present on the scoreboard.

His protective headband is already a hallmark of his image, as much as that scoring instinct that today fills all of Mexico with World Cup hope.