Spain international Pino arrived at Crystal Palace in the summer of 2025 having already established himself as one of La Liga’s most exciting young talents at Villarreal and has since brought that same flair and eye for the spectacular to South London.
Born in Las Palmas, Pino’s senior breakthrough arrived at Villarreal in the 2020/21 season, scoring in the UEFA Europa League just a week after making his professional debut, in an away tie against Qarabağ FK, with the Spanish side going on to win 3-1.
By the end of the campaign, under Unai Emery, he had become the youngest Spanish player to ever start a major European final, and the youngest to win the Europa League, lifting the trophy after defeating Manchester United in Gdańsk aged 18 years and 218 days. This broke the record of a certain Iker Casillas, who just happened to go on to become Spain’s World Cup-winning captain and a Real Madrid legend.
Prior to joining Palace, in terms of Europe’s traditional top five leagues (England, Germany, Spain, Italy, France) only three players also under the age of 23 have more senior appearances than Pino.
In La Liga, Pino was a regular as soon as he broke into the Villarreal team back in 2021. He also made history in February 2022, when becoming the youngest ever player to net a first-half hat-trick in Spain, scoring four as the Yellow Submarine routed Espanyol 5-1.
Pino went on to accrue an impressive 45 goal contributions in 175 appearances for Villarreal, as well as three goals in 15 appearances for the senior Spanish side – including starting their win over Croatia in the 2023 Nations League final.
Typically quick off the mark, his first goal for La Roja arrived in his very first start – a 5-0 win over Iceland in March 2022, with the winger arriving at the back post to head home Jordi Alba’s cross. Later that same year, Pino would be part of the 2022 World Cup finals squad, where Spain reached the last 16.
After departing the Yellow Submarine in the summer of 2025, the Spain international put pen to paper on a five-year deal in South London – and it did not take long for him to make his mark in red and blue.
Pino registered his first two assists in Palace’s 2–0 UEFA Conference League league-phase win over Dynamo Kyiv at the start of October, before opening his account for the club in a 3–0 Carabao Cup victory over Liverpool a few weeks later.
His first Premier League goal followed against Wolves, a powerful strike from the edge of the area which crashed in off the underside of the crossbar and won Palace's November Goal of the Month award!
The 23-year-old came agonisingly close to putting Palace two up in the UEFA Conference League Final against Rayo Vallecano, when his brilliant free-kick struck the post twice, before the defender also hit the woodwork attempting to clear.
In 2025/26, Pino made 53 appearances across all competitions, scoring five goals and providing five assists.
