Analysis
Asensio consolidates himself as the third point of the white trident thanks to his privileged left foot and confirms his resurrection
Real Madrid started the season with a trident made up of Bale, Hazard and Benzema. Gallons weighed. Injuries, lack of involvement in daily work and a meteor called Vinicius immediately took the Welshman and Belgian out of the equation, today residual assets of the squad despite their pharaonic contracts and the astronomical investments that led them to Chamartín. The Frenchman remained unperturbed, unblinkingly fulfilling that goalscoring responsibility that he assumed after Cristiano Ronaldo’s escape. And he found an unexpected partner in the figure of that Brazilian electric whose conception of football had put the ‘9’ into question months before. But that third dagger was missing to complete a revamped offensive front and be able to assume command in the absence of his two referential stars. After months of hesitation, Marco Asensio seems determined to finally take the plunge.
The Balearic goal against Granada, which provided Real Madrid with three vital points to get closer to the League title, served to confirm the resurrection of a footballer endowed with a privileged left foot but whose irregularity has prevented him from shining at the level of that extraordinary talent that A few years ago he became the great hope of Spanish football and one of the sensations on the international scene. “It was a great goal, a house brand”, highlighted the architect of a victory that allowed the Whites to take advantage of Sevilla’s stumble against Osasuna to increase the points gap to six with respect to the team from Seville, their only rival in the race for succeeding an Atlético in free fall in the record.
On a night in which the local parish missed those responsible for more than half of the goals that Real Madrid has scored so far this season, Asensio came to the rescue with a left-footed shot from 30 meters that beat the resistance of Maximiano, the Nasrid colossus that threatened to dry up the leader, as Athletic had done three days earlier in the Copa del Rey. It was the deserved award for the insistence of a footballer who shot six times between the three posts, more than half of the shots on goal that his team made in a match in which another key was Valverde’s irruption after the break , which added another gear to the hitherto stymied Whites’ attack.
Rage
Asensio celebrated the goal a la Cristiano Ronaldo: taking off his shirt to show off his muscle and denote with his rage the vindictive nature of the goal. An unusual effusiveness in an attacker so often timid that he seemed reluctant to take the place that that cannon in his left leg destined him, the best after Messi’s, according to Zinedine Zidane’s reasoning when he supervised his growth in Valdebebas.
At the side of Marseillais, he signed a handful of missiles that made Real Madrid dream, allowed the Spanish team to rub their hands and attracted a cohort of suitors, with Liverpool ready to throw the house out the window after the final in Kiev. But the weight of the backpack that he had carried with his class and excessive expectations took their toll on the Majorcan, who stopped dead due to the rupture of the anterior cruciate ligament and the external meniscus of his left knee that he suffered in the summer of 2019.
The tortuous recovery process and the aftermath that the injury left on Asensio’s mind have meant that since then that differential footballer who inaugurated Florentino Pérez’s commitment to emerging talent in the now distant 2014 has only emerged in dribs and drabs. that the club has not yet entered into talks to renew his contract, which expires in the summer of 2023. His performance raised doubts. Despite the fact that in Chamartín they have always had faith in their definitive emergence, the appearances of the Balearic were sporadic and insufficient to consecrate themselves in the eleven. Ancelotti, disappointed with Bale and with Hazard, has been alternating him with Rodrygo, a purer winger and a better assistant than the ’11’, but with a worse relationship with the goal.
This last facet is Asensio’s main endorsement to earn his continuity at Real Madrid. He has scored eight goals at this point in the season, three short of his best white record, the eleven he recorded in the 2017-18 season. But for this he needs to be more regular and daring. Bring out, in short, the face that he showed against Granada: that of a footballer with edge, character and punch that can pull the cart.