The first image of Arda Güler in a match with Madrid was stealing from him a foul after much insistence on Dani Ceballos against Arandina. The pitch profile was perfect for a right-hander, like the Sevillian, but the Turk (left-handed) was not willing to let even one pass after six months in the infirmary. He grabbed the ball hard and the Andalusian ended up giving in to the young man’s efforts, who sent it to the post. The teenager (19 years old) with the face of a clueless child, at the tail end of Carlo Ancelotti’s van since he recovered from his injuries in January, has not hidden his youthful desire to show himself on the field and, as soon as they have given him a little on the track, he hasn’t stopped hitting the mark.
He has scored six goals in the League in his only six shots on goal in the championship. Since Opta has records of the tournament (2003-04), no player has reached this level of effectiveness in Spain. He has achieved it in matches with hardly any demands for the whites, with the title already packaged, but his aim has been surprising. He has scored a goal every 62 minutes in the League, the best average this season in Europe among those who have at least two goals.
Completely absent in the Champions League between physical problems and lack of opportunities, what has caught the most attention of this fine left-footer is his great productivity despite how little he has appeared: just 373 minutes in the championship, the Madrid outfield player who has participated the least. A few crumbs were enough to leave a trace. In addition to the goals against Celta, Real Sociedad, Granada, Alavés and Villarreal (double), he came out at the end against Girona and forced a penalty, and he was taken off at the last minute at the Sadar and hit the crossbar from 50 meters.
At the Bernabéu last summer they paid 20 million to Fenerbahçe (there are another 10 included in variables), after beating Barcelona, and the first thing the beardless boy said was that he was not going anywhere on loan. He got tired of repeating it in his presentation.
He is an “alien because of his quality,” Ancelotti once proclaimed in those days. Although the physicist stopped dead Martian. Three consecutive injuries to both legs kept him out until January. The club, which had already detected that his muscle growth was still incomplete, gave him an “intense work plan, with mornings and afternoons at the gym, and his diet was especially monitored,” details from Valdebebas.
His body healed in early 2024, but then the milli on site with Carletto. For months, the Turk was almost the last in line. If he needed other avenues of attack, he would turn to Brahim, Joselu, Fran García on the left side or shake up the midfield. Güler has only had a focus when the whites have secured the League, although he has been little enough to make people talk. “It has not even reached 20% of what was expected: physically and emotionally. He brought talent from his cradle,” they point out from the Ciudad Deportiva.
“He stays, there is no doubt”
Ancelotti, often asked about his lack of participation from January to April, has not stopped appealing to everyone’s patience while the young man has not been able to hide his frustration at his invisibility at times. Against Almería at home, with Madrid behind, the Italian exhausted all the changes without counting on him, who ended up throwing his bib to the ground.
The coach has also given him a couple of sharp responses in recent times. “In the next games he will have the minutes he wants,” he said after the classic. “Madrid asks me to win the games, not to give minutes to the youngest players,” he responded on the night of the alirón. In any case, his continuity, according to Carletto’s recent words, is assured. “He stays, there is no doubt,” he said in Anoeta after months in which doubts abroad had taken flight. “A young man like him needs to play. This clashes a little with the team’s demands,” the coach had warned at the beginning of March.
Opening the bottle, his ability to produce places Güler close to the goal on Ancelotti’s board. The Turk is the latest rabbit that Madrid has pulled out of its hat. “We have treated him as if he were our little son,” Joselu summarized this Sunday about the young man’s winter of maturation.
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