In an interview with TNT Sports Argentina, relayed by Bolvaip, West Ham United forward Taty Castellanos has opened up about being turned away by River Plate during his youth career, not once, but twice. The 27-year-old Mendoza native had trials at both River Plate and Club Atlético Lanús, and though he initially earned a place in the River Plate setup on his first attempt, his second visit ended with a blunt verdict: he was too slim
Taty Castellanos Reveals River Plate Rejected Him for Being Too Skinny
Food was not always guaranteed either. Castellanos admitted that growing up in the Mendoza League, he sometimes went without food. Coming up against River Plate academy players who lived in boarding houses, trained in gymnasiums, and attended school on-site made it clear he was well behind physically.
He returned home, asked his mother to fund a gym membership, and got to work. By 2015, Universidad de Chile had signed him. Torque followed, then New York City FC in 2018, Girona in 2022, Lazio a year later, and then West Ham’s £25-million January swoop, with Lazio manager Maurizio Sarri openly admitting he regretted letting him leave.
“I hadn’t played in the AFA [Argentine Football Association], and I went to River Plate and Lanús for trials. I made the River Plate team the first time, but the second time, they made me come back after two months and told me I was too skinny. I needed to grow a bit physically. It’s normal, I was playing in the Mendoza League, sometimes I didn’t even eat,” Castellanos explained.
“I was going to compete against kids from River Plate’s academy who were in the gym all day, who went to school there, and lived in the boarding house. They’d make the difference; they’d just throw you a long ball, and that was it. I went back to Mendoza, and I told my mom, ‘I need you to pay for a gym membership. I realised that I was lacking and needed to grow. My football skills were good; I knew how to handle the ball, but I lacked physical strength,” he added.
Does Castellanos’s Arrival Signal a Permanent Shift in West Ham’s Attacking Identity Under Nuno?
That backstory carries real importance now. West Ham signed Castellanos on 5th January 2026, with the club rooted in the relegation zone, and the Argentine has since contributed three goals across 11 appearances, a return that has made him one of the more productive January arrivals in the division. That shift has not happened by accident. Nuno Espírito Santo has reorganised West Ham’s press around Castellanos’s pressing and movement up front. The team’s attacking shape looks nothing like the one that stumbled through the first half of the season.
The River Plate rejection helps explain the type of player West Ham have brought in: a forward who had to fight for everything without the safety net of a top academy. That weakness as a teenager became something he fixated on fixing, which is why the player whose aerial threat at Burnley and hold-up work against Fulham have given Nuno a reference point his squad previously lacked.
West Ham’s four-and-a-half-year contract signals real belief in him as a long-term option rather than a short-term fix, and with Crysencio Summerville finding consistent form in tandem, Castellanos now has a genuine creative partner beside him rather than working alone. River Plate’s scouting staff made a judgment call on a skinny kid from Mendoza and read him completely wrong. West Ham, by contrast, made a €30 million call on a complete forward, and with six Premier League games separating them from safety, that decision looks better with each passing week.
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