Isco starts off on the wrong foot

The good news grows in Real Madrid after the hopeful start of the league season, with a resounding victory over Alavés in Mendizorroza (1-4): Benzema continues to be the beacon that guides the whites, Hazard and Bale offer green shoots, Modric improves with the years, Alaba fits first in Madrid … But every story has two sides and one, by contrast, has to be bitter before all the sweetness that the white team emits these days. On that dark side of the triumph in Vitoria is placed Isco, who had hopes placed on this start of the League and who has seen that train go by, barely getting on at the end in a testimonial and meaningless way.

Isco's expectations were not based on wishful thinking; The malagueño had reasons to think of a good opportunity at the home of Alavés, in view of the behavior of the preseason. Isco started in the two friendlies, against Rangers and Milan, playing 90 minutes in the first case and 84 in the second; no field player played more minutes than him. His performance was uneven, but rising, and against Milan he offered interesting details.

In addition, the controversy around the future of Odegaard clearly benefited him: Ancelotti left the Norwegian without registering for the first game and told him that the competition in the core was very high. Odegaard wants to leave to be the undisputed starter yes or yes from the beginning; he trusts to be able to do it at Arsenal and Madrid, who always bet on keeping him no matter what, he already welcomes a sale given the Nordic's lack of ambition. An Isco with a role very similar to that of Odegaard benefited from all that battle. But in the moment of truth, Ancelotti took another path.

In Vitoria, Modric, Valverde and Casemiro were the starters, the three players who played international tournaments this summer (in the case of the Brazilian, reaching the end of the Copa América) and with less preparation than Isco, who joined the preseason from day one and also had the approval of Ancelotti after having been important in his first stage in Madrid, between 2013 and 2015. Despite being less shot than the Andalusian, Ancelotti chose them ahead of him.

Isco is transferable

And the game, to top it all, did not bring anything to Isco, despite the fact that Madrid went 0-3, a comfortable result to distribute minutes and distribute breaks. Isco came out in 88 instead of Valverde, he barely had two minutes and the extension, a time in which he did not have time to be seen: he gave three passes (all good) and recovered a ball. Ancelotti preferred the deployment of Valverde, his ability to cover more field and to balance the team without the ball. It remains to be seen if Isco still does not enter into the plans for the next day, on Sunday against Levante, but what he has been able to see so far indicates that he will have it at least as difficult as in previous courses, under the command of Zidane .

That lack of prominence under Zizou's orders already led him to ask to be transferred or transferred last January; Then, Madrid had already authorized the departure of Odegaard to Arsenal and did not want to repeat with the Andalusian, but this summer the issue was very different. Isco knew that the poster is transferable and that the club would willingly subtract the 14 million gross that the Malaga player costs him per year; He also wants to leave, but no offers have come to Madrid for him and the player's agent and father has not taken anything to the white offices either.. The proximity of the end of his contract (in 2022) invites him to wait a year and take it free then. There are days until the market closes and if an offer arrives, the club will study it; For now, Isco already knows that he is starting from the bench for Ancelotti.