Jesús Imaz Ballesté (born 26 September 1990) is a Spanish professional

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby lea ...

who plays as a

forward Forward is a relative direction, the opposite of backward. Forward may also refer to: People *Forward (surname) Sports * Forward (association football) * Forward (basketball), including: ** Point forward ** Power forward (basketball) ** Smal ...

for

Ekstraklasa (; meaning "Extra Class" in Polish), officially known as PKO Bank Polski Ekstraklasa due to its Sponsor (commercial), sponsorship by PKO Bank Polski, is a professional association football league in Poland and the highest level of the Polish foo ...

club

Jagiellonia Białystok Jagiellonia Białystok () is a Polish professional football club based in Białystok that plays in the Ekstraklasa, the top level of Polish football. The club was founded in 1920 by soldiers in the 42nd Infantry Regiment Reserve Battalion in Bi ...

Club career

Spain

Born in

Lleida Lleida (, ; ; '' see below'') is a city in the west of Catalonia, Spain. It is the capital and largest town in Segrià county, the Ponent region and the province of Lleida. Geographically, it is located in the Catalan Central Depression. It ...

Catalonia Catalonia is an autonomous community of Spain, designated as a ''nationalities and regions of Spain, nationality'' by its Statute of Autonomy of Catalonia of 2006, Statute of Autonomy. Most of its territory (except the Val d'Aran) is situate ...

, Imaz was a

UE Lleida Unió Esportiva Lleida was a Spanish football team based in Lleida, in the autonomous community of Catalonia. It was founded as ''Lérida Balompié-AEM'' on 30 October 1939, and became ''Unión Deportiva Lérida'' in 1947, after a merger with ''C ...

youth graduate. He made his senior debut on 30 August 2009, coming on as a second-half substitute in a 1–1 home draw against

Sant Andreu Sant Andreu () is one of the ten districts of Barcelona since its redistricting in 1984. It was named after the former municipality of Sant Andreu de Palomar, which was the largest in the area and now makes up the bulk of the neighbourhood beari ...

in the

Segunda División B Segunda División B (English: second division B) was the third tier of the Spanish football league system containing 102 teams divided into five groups, until it was replaced by the new structure in 2021. It was administered by the Royal Spanish ...

. In the summer of 2011, after Lleida's dissolution, Imaz joined newly formed

Lleida Esportiu Lleida Club de Futbol is a Spanish football team based in Lleida, in the autonomous community of Catalonia. Founded in July 2011, it plays in , holding home games at Camp d'Esports, with a capacity of 13,500 seats. History In mid-May 2011, hi ...

also in the third division. He was first choice in the following seasons, as the club missed out on promotion two times in the play-offs. On 12 July 2014, Imaz signed a two-year deal with

Llagostera Llagostera () is a municipality in the ''comarca'' of the Gironès in Catalonia, Spain. During the 20th century, it was known for the production of cork and derived articles. It is located 20 km south of Girona and 15 km west from the ...

, recently promoted to

Segunda División The Campeonato Nacional de Liga de Segunda División, commonly known as Segunda División or La Liga 2, and officially known as LaLiga HyperMotion for sponsorship reasons, is the men's second professional association football division of the Spa ...

. He played his first match as a professional on 23 August, replacing Vallho in the 78th minute of a 2–0 away loss to

Las Palmas Las Palmas (, ; ), officially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is a Spanish city and capital of Gran Canaria, in the Canary Islands, in the Atlantic Ocean. It is the capital city of the Canary Islands (jointly with Santa Cruz de Tenerife) and the m ...

. Imaz scored his first second-tier goal on 19 October 2014, but in a 1–4 home defeat against

Mallorca Mallorca, or Majorca, is the largest of the Balearic Islands, which are part of Spain, and the List of islands in the Mediterranean#By area, seventh largest island in the Mediterranean Sea. The capital of the island, Palma, Majorca, Palma, i ...

. On 11 July 2016, having suffered relegation, he agreed to a one-year contract at

UCAM Murcia UCAM Murcia is a Spanish multi-sport club. It may refer to: * UCAM Murcia CB, the basketball team * UCAM Murcia CF, their football team {{Disambiguation ...

in the same league. On 27 January 2017, Imaz moved to fellow second division side

Cádiz Cádiz ( , , ) is a city in Spain and the capital of the Province of Cádiz in the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia. It is located in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula off the Atlantic Ocean separated fr ...

, signing until June 2018.

Poland

On 31 August 2017, Imaz joined a host of compatriots at Polish club

Wisła Kraków Towarzystwo Sportowe Wisła Kraków Spółka Akcyjna, commonly referred to as Wisła Kraków (), is a Polish professional football club based in Kraków. They currently compete in the I liga, the second level of Polish football league system, ...

. He remained in the

in January 2019, signing a three-and-a-half-year deal with

. With 12 goals in 2023–24, Imaz was Jagiellonia's joint-top scorer as they won the first league title in their 104-year history. He had netted a career-best 14 times the previous campaign, but his team narrowly avoided relegation.

Career statistics

Honours

Jagiellonia Białystok *

: 2023–24 *

Polish Super Cup The Polish Super Cup (, ) is an annually held match between the champions of the Ekstraklasa and the Polish Cup winners or, if the Ekstraklasa champions also win the Polish Cup, the Cup's runners-up. As of 2024, the Polish Super Cup has been ...

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

Individual * ''Piłka Nożna'' Foreigner of the Year: 2024 *Ekstraklasa Goal of the Season:

2020–21 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

*Ekstraklasa Player of the Month: October 2018,

August 2019 This was the year in which the first known human case of COVID-19 was documented, preceding the pandemic which was declared by the World Health Organization the following year. Up to that point, 2019 had been described as the "best year in ...

, September 2022, October 2024

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Imaz, Jesus 1990 births Living people 21st-century Spanish sportsmen Spanish men's footballers Footballers from Lleida Men's association football forwards Segunda División players Segunda División B players UE Lleida players Lleida CF players Som Maresme FC players UCAM Murcia CF players Cádiz CF players Ekstraklasa players Wisła Kraków players Jagiellonia Białystok players Spanish expatriate men's footballers Expatriate men's footballers in Poland Spanish expatriate sportspeople in Poland