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Marco Asensio, trapped in limbo at Real Madrid

2022-08-16T10:44:42.601Z


The club does not contemplate extending his contract, which expires in 2023, and prefers to sell it, although there are no offers that the player and the team like


Marco Asensio, last Tuesday at the Helsinki Olympic Stadium, the day before the European Super Cup.CHEMA MOYA (EFE)

August consumes its days, those that remain in the summer transfer market;

and while the calendar advances, concern grows among some of the people closest to Marco Asensio, whose contract with Real Madrid expires on June 30.

The club has not offered him an extension, nor does it contemplate doing so.

What's more, according to several sources familiar with the sports planning drawn up in the Valdebebas offices, they believe that the best option would be to sell the footballer this summer, but no suitable offers have appeared, neither for the club nor for the player.

The offices and the bench are aligned on this matter.

Madrid has played two official matches this season (the European Super Cup and the first day of the League) and Asensio (Palma de Mallorca; 26 years old) has not appeared for a minute on the field that 19 other footballers did step on.

In addition to the Mallorcan, only Lunin (second goalkeeper), Vallejo (fifth center back), Odriozola (even off the list in Helsinki and weighing destiny) and Mariano (whom Madrid has wanted to get rid of in recent summers) have remained without participating. .

The development of the Super Cup match against Eintracht was a decisive message for him.

After seeing how he was left without participating in Helsinki, and that Dani Ceballos, whose contract also expires in 2023, came on in the 84th minute for Vinicius to occupy a winger position, Asensio asked for an audience with Carlo Ancelotti, according to a source's account Close to the footballer.

At that time, the player was inclined to remain at Real Madrid.

In the last season he signed the best records of him as a professional footballer.

He scored 12 goals, finishing as the team's third-highest scorer, behind Benzema (44) and Vinicius (22), and he was also the third player to have the most dangerous chances.

Statsbomb's model estimated his chances to be worth 8.1 expected goals.

The first two were also Benzema (32.1) and Vinicius (17.3).

These data, the development of the preseason and the World Cup three months away, seemed to advise that he continue at the club.

However, the conversation with Ancelotti pointed more to the fact that it would be a good idea to find a way out.

The Italian coach knows the club's plans with the attacker.

That explains his keeping him in the reserve, and also the caution with which he has been referred to in public when asked about the player's future.

The last time, on Sunday night in Almería, after the victory with which Madrid started the League: "As I said the other day [Tuesday in Helsinki], Asensio is a Madrid player, and as long as he is a Madrid player, I consider him a Madrid player.

If he deserves to play, he will play.

We have to take into account what Asensio has contributed last year.

He has scored many goals for us.

In a very important game he has opened the scoring.

He is an important player.

Until he is a Madrid player.

We have to wait until the 31st to see what happens and what he decides,” he said.

With this moment in the calendar in mind (a contract year ahead and the World Cup in sight), Asensio decided in April to entrust the next steps of his career to Jorge Mendes, Cristiano Ronaldo's agent, among many others.

His representative from all his life, Horacio Gaggioli, went to a secondary plane.

With Cristiano stuck uncomfortably in a failing Manchester United, Mendes has not yet found a way out that satisfies Madrid and Asensio.

A source close to the footballer assures that there are several Premier and Serie A clubs interested in the player, but that they have not been willing to pay more than 25 million euros.

And he believes that Madrid would not agree to the transfer for less than 40. The limits of the negotiation, in such an embryonic state, are still very uncertain, but a source close to the club's sports department believes that the footballer could leave for about 30 million .

Madrid saw for years in Asensio the next great talent in the process of cooking, perhaps the next flagship player.

He took care of his development and pampered him in a special way when he suffered a serious knee injury in July 2019. He appreciated the jump in performance from last year, but at the moment he does not find what he offers so valuable as to ignore what he what falters.

In his environment they consider that if Rodrygo, Valverde and Lucas Vázquez have overtaken him in the dispute for the right wing of the attack, it is not so much a matter of quality, but of intensity, particularly in defensive tasks.

Conversations have been held in his circle in this regard, in which it has been mentioned that this is precisely what Luis Enrique expects of him to join the Qatar expedition in November.

His enormous talent alone is not enough for top-level football, they say.

There are 17 days left until the market closes in Europe on September 1 at midnight, and Mendes is looking for options that satisfy the club and the player.

The signs point to a way out, but if the conditions are not found, Ancelotti will use it as he said on Sunday: "If he deserves to play, he will play."

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Source: elparis

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