The Mexico international's career looked to have been on a downward spiral when he moved to the Bundesliga in August but he has rediscovered the Midas touch and then some
Louis van Gaal and Ryan Giggs effectively put Javier Hernandez in a Manchester United job interview by handing him that infamous penalty against Club Brugge in the Champions League qualifiers in the autumn. Hernandez knew that after a goalless start to the season he was vulnerable. Score and you stay, miss and you go.
Of course he missed. Van Gaal and Giggs shared a look that effectively sealed the Mexican's fate. You're out of here.
What he needed was the sanctuary of a club who trusted him - not only to chase elusive equalisers and run the clock down - but to start games week by week and make him feel like the top man. Bayer Leverkusen could scarcely believe their luck when Chicharito came available for £8 million. It has been a perfect match.
"What I was missing in the last two or three years, it was like I was playing sometimes and then returning to the bench," Hernandez told the Orlando Sentinel in January. "But now that I am playing most of the game or almost all of my games here in my club, that's what I need.
"Because people sometimes think the confidence is with goals, but I don't think like that. I think confidence is to play day-by-day, to get rhythm."
Even so, Leverkusen are not totally dependent on Hernandez; they are not a one-man band by any stretch of the imagination but player and club have come to complement each other very nicely.
There is a maturity and a thoughtfulness in Hernandez's game that you wouldn't have known existed based on his output for United or Real. He is thriving on his centrality, his importance to his team's cause. He has adapted well to what coach Roger Schmidt has asked of him too.
He has also settled well in Germany. "It was a new challenge, a breath of fresh air," he told the Bundesliga's official website in November. "I was keen to learn new things, to learn about a new culture, a new country, a new language, a new style of football and a new league. Everything!" The high percentage of English speakers at the club has also helped.
This is not a superstar with a team catered to him though. Far from it. He is expected to press like the rest of them. The rewards are evident. Chicharito has started 14 matches for Leverkusen in the Bundesliga and scored 13 times, averaging a goal every 93 minutes of league football. For their part, Leverkusen are back in the Champions League places ahead of this weekend's visit of Bayern Munich.
He scored five more in six Champions League matches and has three in two outings in the DFB-Pokal. Furthermore, he scored his first-ever professional hat-trick before Christmas in a 5-0 win against Borussia Monchengladbach on the same night United were beaten by lowly Bournemouth.
That is not to say Hernandez would have made the difference there either. The time had come, simply, for him to move on. He admits that Louis van Gaal gave him a "one per cent" chance of playing regularly this season and so was never likely to start even as Wayne Rooney and Anthony Martial huffed and puffed through the winter months.
No doubt Leverkusen have their eyes focussed on a sale back to a top-tier European club in the next couple of summers. Hernandez himself admits that it doesn't matter if you sign a one or 10-year contract at a club, things can change in an instant. Given his form and reputational restoration this season in the Bundesliga that moment is coming sooner in to his three-year contract than might have been expected. For now, Leverkusen are enjoying his football and added marketability - he was the star turn at the recent Florida Cup in the United States.
"We have to profit as much as possible with Chicharito, but we have to be prepared for the time after as well," their Marketing and Communications Director Jochen A. Rotthaus said recently.
Leverkusen, however, are well accustomed to life like that. They buy players cheap, turn them into stars and sell on for huge profit. That day will come for Chicharito too.
So let's put to bed the notion that Javier Hernandez has somehow been 'reborn' at Bayer Leverkusen. He has always been a great striker; the only difference now is that he has the opportunity to show it.
- Goal