Marco Asensio will close this Sunday, in the match against Athletic Club de Bilbao in Santiago Bernabeu, a period of seven seasons in real Madrid where he won everything, but where a serious knee injury cut short the prediction of a world star that his football imagined.
Asensio and Real Madrid They have not agreed to renew in recent weeks and, after rejecting a second contract extension offer from the white team, the Spanish attacker decided to announce his departure from the club on Wednesday.
A situation that was about to happen ten months ago, when he had a year left on his contract. Even the Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti recognized that he would not count on him until his future was resolved, but he finally decided to stay one more season under the promise of more fame.
And it was that Asensio He was the team’s third leading scorer last season with 12 goals, a figure he matched this season despite, finally, playing fewer minutes. In addition, he dished out eight assists for two last season.
The numbers, however, do not allow him to be a starter in real Madrid beyond the League matches where the white team has already given up. In 2021-2022 he played 2,111 minutes in 42 games, while in 2022-2023 he participated in 50 games adding up to 1,964 minutes.
The lack of popularity that has been one of the reasons that led him to decide to return his career, where Unai Emery’s Aston Villa insists on making him a capital player in his project, although, yes, there is still no communication in your future.
Marco Asensio He spent seven seasons at Real Madrid that many other players would sign without thinking about it, even if from the beginning he aimed for more. In his first campaign, 2016-2017, after standing on loan to the Spanish, Asensio became a golden shock for the ‘BBC’ (Bale, Benzema, Cristiano).
Extraordinary left-footed strike -which accompanied him throughout his career- physical exuberance, one on one… only the high level of competition encompassed an unquestionable ownership which, however, was intuited as far as – view He lifted his first -of three- ‘Champions’ with a crucial goal against Bayern Munich in the quarterfinals and scored in the final against Juventus. After that, a true European champion, he played European sub-17 with Spain.
His second season, 2017-2018, he started it dazzling with two wonderful goals in the Spanish Super Cup against Barcelona, goal until last season (11 ).
Its the year of total disruption who joined him the following summer on the departure of the Cristiano Ronaldo of Real Madrid, which made him turn his eyes when the player called to take a step forward and be indisputable, but not like that, the first criticisms came and some words that destroyed him.
He leftand Christian, and he left Zinedine Zidane coach in three consecutive Champions Leagues. Arrived Julen Lopetegui on the bench, he was not accompanied by results and ended up being dismissed. About this crisis they asked Ascent en November, during the concentration in Spain, and his words surprised.
“I don’t have to be the one to tow the car to the club. There are other players who have been at the club for more years, more experience, with a higher status than me and they have to pull the bandwagon”, he assured. Contrary to what the fans and the club saw of him, did not Asensio took that step forward, neither in performance, and finished the season with the lowest number of goals (six) until injury got in his way.
After a period in which the real Madrid only won the Club World Cup against two inferior rivals, Zidane he’s back and the best too Asensio. In 2018-2019 he seemed to take a step forward from the preseason, knowing that he had to fill the void left by Cristiano and a Bale who had not given a performance in recent years. But fate had other plans.
Asensio he scored a great goal in a friendly in the United States against Arsenal and recaptured the sensations of his early years, but bad support when trying to steal the ball from Aubameyang cost him a tear of the anterior cruciate ligament and lateral meniscus of the left knee. Only the end of the season and the postponements due to the coronavirus pandemic saw him reappear at its end, having minutes to regain his form.
Zidane He trusted him and in 2020-2021 he gave him 2,614 minutes and, for the second time at Real Madrid, was more times a starter than a substitute; although the memory of the player he was before the injury is still valid and Asensio did not reach that level.
Blank season, come Carlo Ancelotti and Asensio volHe found the initial point, the role played by gold disgusting. He had 500 fewer minutes, but scored five more goals and set his best goalscoring record, 12 goals. He added the League and the Champions League to his record, but he wanted more, he wanted to feel important every three days and that, with Ancelotti’s choice of Fede Valverde as a right winger, Real Madrid did not give him.
Because of this, he switched representatives and chose the Portuguese jorge mendes to find a way that, finally, is not so. With no option to fully convince him and under Ancelotti’s promise to rely on him, he stayed. A final year of the contract in which he is no longer a starter -he closes his stage with 44.5% of the games played since the beginning- and ends on June 30, but in which, for practical purposes, it will end this Sunday at the Santiago Bernabéu when he says goodbye to his fans for the last seven seasons.
He would do so, so far, with another 12 goals under his arm to which he has added eight assists; the best records in terms of participation in goals in his career as a professional -in Spain he participated in 19 goals with 4 goals and 15 passes in the goal- and in the goal feeling like an indispensable part of a project in the next step in his sports career
Source: La Verdad
I am Shawn Partain, a journalist and content creator working for the Today Times Live. I specialize in sports journalism, writing articles that cover major sporting events and news stories. With a passion for storytelling and an eye for detail, I strive to be accurate and insightful in my work.
