The second youth that Raúl Jiménez is experiencing at Fulham in the Premier League at 33 years old has also translated to the Mexico national team, which has qualified for its third final of the CONCACAF Nations League after defeating Canada thanks to two goals by Raúl Jiménez, who surpassed Luis ‘El Matador’ Hernández and became the fourth highest scorer in the history of Mexican football.

The Raúl Jiménez-Santi Giménez duo works in Mexico

Before the match, the debate centered around who would be the chosen forward by Javier Aguirre to face Canada between Santi Giménez and Raúl Jiménez. However, and against all odds, it ended up being decided to align both forwards together… in a trio of attackers that was completed by the talented Alexis Vega. A formation that surprised Jesse Marsch and couldn’t have gone better.

"Happy that Vasco Aguirre gave us this try. We are two forwards in great form with our teams, I think the experiment went well, it also went well knowing that having two forwards up top worries the defenders more. We didn’t have many scoring chances, but we know how to link up and I think we knew how to play our game," said Raúl Jiménez after the match.

Raúl Jiménez is chasing Cuauhtémoc Blanco

From the start, Raúl Jiménez made it clear that Javier Aguirre was right in his choice by scoring the fastest goal of his career at 49 seconds. Later, in the second half, he added a second goal with a sensational direct free-kick to bring his personal tally with Mexico to 37 goals.

His next target is Cuauhtémoc Blanco (38), whom Raúl Jiménez hopes to surpass in the final against Panama to position himself in the top three all-time top scorers for Mexico alongside Jared Borgetti (46) and ‘Chicharito’ Hernández (52): “We know it's a tough opponent. No one had eliminated United States in the Nations League. But, if we play like today, we will come through,” predicted Raúl Jiménez after the match against Canada.