Álvaro Odriozola has regained his smile at Fiorentina. The right back, loaned by Real Madrid this season in the group viola, has played 21 games so far this season, 16 of them as a starter. And although he is focused and fully immersed in the fight for European places with the Italian team –the Florence club is 7th, with 42 points, 5 points off 4th place–, the Real Sociedad youth squad does not lose sight of to the white set. “I watch absolutely all the Real Madrid games. When it coincides with the Fiorentina games, I see them at night and, of course, I don’t take my eyes off everything that happens on a day-to-day basis”declared Odriozola in an interview for OK Diary. For the Spanish winger, who arrived at the Santiago Bernabéu in the summer of 2018 for 40M euros, he is enjoying opportunities that he has not had since he left the txuri-urdin team: “Since I played for Real I didn’t feel like I was the undisputed starter. I haven’t had the opportunity to enjoy this form of football”.
During the last summer transfer market, Álvaro Odriozola made the decision to leave the white team on loan again – he left for Bayern Munich during the second half of the 2019/2020 season – this time to Florence. Although it was Carlo Ancelotti himself who advised the right-back to sign for the Viola team, as the player has stated, he tells in said interview that the Italian coach gave the ‘ok’ to his continuity at Real Madrid: “In the summer I spoke with Ancelotti and he told me that if I stayed it would be perfect, that he trusted my quality, that there would be no problem. But in the summer, coincidences of life, I had COVID. I started with a disadvantage and it seemed to me that I was not being honest with the club and with myself to occupy a place in that dressing room and a number. I think it was a bit disrespectful knowing that at that time he was the third and was going to play very little or not at all. I think you have to be honest with yourself and I decided to go out and play“. Among other things, it was in Florence, and in reference to Dusan Vlahovic, where he had “the fortune to share a team with him, and I can tell you that he is a phenomenon, one of a kind. He yes he can be at the level of the best “.
Seen what was seen, the bet went well. After a final stretch of the 2020/2021 academic year in which Odriozola became an important footballer for Zinedine Zidane (16 games and 2 goals), the former Real Sociedad player was able to show “the world that I could play for Madrid, but above all I showed it to myself. Injuries began to respect me, which by the way I have had many at Real Madrid, and I was able to give my level”. That is why now, having regained the regularity in his game, and although he says he is with all his senses focused on Florence, Odriozola doubts about what will happen in the future: “You don’t know what’s going to happen. There’s no doubt that it’s every footballer’s dream to succeed at Real Madrid”. And it is that, in addition to ending up triumphing in the white team, the right back has other objectives in mind. “I would be delighted to return to the National Team four years later. I focus on my club, on doing a great job here, and if I have the opportunity to be called up by Luis Enrique, the truth is that it would be a privilege and an honor“, affirms the player owned by Real Madrid.