Jovic tiene dos ‘match ball’

Suddenly, without expecting it, the melon of new opportunities opens up for Luka Jovic. Karim Benzema’s absence due to injury offers him the opportunity to be a starter in San Mamés against Athletic and surely in the League against Granada (Sunday 6, 9:00 p.m.) at the Santiago Bernabéu. He will surely have Asensio on the right and Vinicius to form the offensive trident that tries to qualify Real Madrid for the Cup semi-finals. The Serbian returns to the north: this season he had to replace Benzema in San Sebastián and his performance could not have been more spectacular: an assist to Vinicius, where he almost copied Butragueño’s stoppage time to hold the ball and return it to the Brazilian, and the madridista winning goal, throwing himself on the plate looking for the ball. Remiro couldn’t stop the header.

Luck seems to accompany the Serbian striker. In the past summer market, several teams asked for his services, but Madrid decided not to listen to any claims. Neither did the player: Ancelotti wanted to see him carefully in his daily work, confident that he could return the player to his best version, the one that made Madrid pay 60 million euros for him after a stratospheric season at Eintracht in which he scored 27 goals in 48 games. At that time, English teams like West Ham were interested in him in the summer; Inter also studied his signing, but that goal against Real Sociedad began to change the fate of the Serbian striker. Days later he made a couple of gestures in the last match of the league against Inter in the Champions League that denoted a change in his game: he had two chances, one he shot with class over Handanovic, the Interista goalkeeper, who came out brushing the crossbar and the other, in the second half, was a lopsided shot that crashed into the net.

After being on the verge of not being able to attend the Spanish Super Cup due to suffering from COVID, decided not to listen to offers from abroad. Little by little it has been entering a positive dynamic. Perhaps he lacks some continuity, something that can be resolved in these games this week. Jovic knows that he is before his penultimate? opportunity to earn a place in the Madrid squad. He has five months ahead of him to show that he has a place despite the rumors of the arrivals of Mbappé and Haaland. The summer is moving in the white offices with exits (Bale, Isco, Marcelo, Mariano, perhaps Hazard although Ancelotti said that he is in the plans for next year), and he has time ahead to start changing his turn. He is aware that he has to take advantage of these two extra lives that have been presented to him now and in two key games for the future of Madrid both in the Cup and in the League.

But To begin with, it must be sung: in his last game played, against Elche, on January 23, he left without finishing even once on goal, something he has done in nine of the 15 games he has played this season. Already in the Martínez Valero against Elche, in the Cup, he spent 79 minutes on the pitch without shooting on goal. Madrid had a hard time generating an attack that day, but at the Bernabéu he accumulated up to 16 shots, eight of them on goal, and none of them were from the Serbian, who has barely had nine shots, four of them on goal (a goal, yes). , which gave the Whites victory), in 434 minutes this season. Against Athletic, in a hostile climate, and with the pass to the Cup semifinals, the best is expected from Jovic. It has two extra bullets to trace. The first is all or nothing…