“Before I made a mistake, I did not make that mistake,” he once said. Johan CruyffAs if in football it was always so easy to get it right. Although the great operation that Florentino Pérez has between eyebrows is – in addition to finishing the brand new Santiago Bernabeu Stadium– the signing of Mbappé, the Real Madrid he needs to keep an eye on the market in order to strengthen his lead, the weakest line since the march of the greatest scorer in his history, Cristiano Ronaldo, no less than 450 in 438 games.
With that intention, the Madrid club closed a year ago the signing of Luka Jovic, 21-year-old Serbian forward who had uncovered himself in the Frankfurt Eintracht with 26 goals in 44 games. As always happens in these cases, the alleged interest of other large Europe, among which, of course, the FC Barcelona, the operation became more expensive, which went up to 60 million euros.
[Portazo de Zidane a Odriozola y su ilusión de triunfar en el Madrid]
This amount, more and more common in football in recent years, although from now on, and at least for a time, it will be difficult to see it again, turned Jovic into a the eighth most expensive of Real Madrid, behind those of Bale, Hazaard, Cristiano, Zidane, James, Kaka and Figo, and the 18th in Spanish football, as the eight most expensive Madrid players are joined by the four most expensive, three from the FC Barcelona and one of the Atlético de Madridnamely Coutinho, Joao Félix, Dembelé and Griezmann, in addition to six others, Neymar, Luis Suárez, Morata, Lemar and Ibrahimovic, four from Barça and two from Atleti.
However, Jovic’s first season at Real Madrid was a failure, with a total of 770 minutes played, of which 166 in the Arabian super cup In absence of Benzema, and in the last three games without even being called by Zidane. His only two goals were in The league. The first, at 5-0 at Leganes and the second in 1-4 a Osasuna in Pamplona. As if that were not enough, after stopping the competition he was accused of breaking the rules of confinement in Belgrade after traveling to his country in the midst of the coronavirus crisis.
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At 19 years old and 40 goals in 33 games
One year later, the name that is on the table of Real Madrid is Erling Haaland. The English-born Norwegian forward who will turn 20 in July arrived on the winter market at Borussia Dortmund, who paid 20 million for it Salzburg. His numbers are brutal, with 16 goals in 14 games in the Austrian league, 9 in the 8 he has played in Bundesliga10 in 8 of the Champions League, 6 with Salzburg (8) and 2 with Dortmund (2), 4 in 2 of the Austrian Cup and 1 in the only game of the Germany Cup. Total, 40 in 33 games, plus 9 assists.
Haaland’s credentials are there and are irrefutable. However, Jovic’s recent case is something to consider in Valdebebas when evaluating his transfer. While waiting for events and how football is able to face the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, we must analyze how the Norwegian striker would fit in with Real Madrid, since It is not the same to uncover as a scorer in Austria and Germany, than to do it in the largest in Europe, where Cristiano’s shadow is still too long and today only Mbappé seems to be able to cover it.
Economically the operation is assumable by Florentino Pérez, who, unlike the leaders of FC Barcelona and Atlético de Madrid, has not taken Real Madrid to a Temporary Employment Regulation File (ERTE) to benefit from state aid and, therefore, will not be supervised by the Ministry of Labor and Finance. Also, and as much as Dortmund intends to extract more than 70 million euros from Haaland and thus triple what he paid just a few months ago, Real Madrid has plenty of players to be able to include in the operation and thus lower that amount.
Starting with Achraf, on loan the last two seasons to the German team, although it seems that Zidane has him as a replacement for Carvajal and to the detriment of Odriozola. But there are more footballers like Lucas Vazquez, Mariano, Foreman, the Japanese Kubo, loaned to Mallorca, and even Óscar Rodríguez, loaned to Leganés. It is evident that Real Madrid does well to be attentive to the Haaland phenomenon, but also to value what happened with Jovic, whom he signed a year ago and has only been news for the moment to skip the confinement in Belgrade after traveling to his country in the middle of the coronavirus crisis. And it is that, to end Cruyff, “the money has to be in the field, not in the bank,” said the Dutch coach. But above all, never on the bench, we could add …
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