As part of the preparatory work for the upcoming GOYA Survey with GTC/EMIR, the GOYA team obtained deep galaxy number counts in the U, B and K bands, for the Groth strip. We present number count models that simultaneously explain the counts in the three bands. We find that most of the precursors of today's early-type galaxies (ellipticals, S0) must have formed at redshifts more recent than z = 2, with z = 1.5 providing a good match to the data. The constraint arises from the observed slope change that occurs in the NIR counts at K ˜ 17.5. With EMIR on GTC, we expect to map the rest-frame optical continuum of early-type galaxies to z ˜ 1.5, and their emission lines to z ˜ 2.6, to obtain key properties of early-type galaxies and their precursors at the key epoch when they stopped making stars.