Jovic, yes; Mariano, no

Carlo Ancelotti is very clear about his main alternative when he decides to give Benzema breaks this season: Luka Jovic. After having worked all the preseason with Jovic and Mariano, the Italian is convinced that the Serbian is a very profitable forward and has decided to recover that version of the killer that took him two years ago to score 27 at Eintracht Frankfurt. goals making Madrid pay 60 million euros for his transfer. A bet that was unsuccessful in Jovic’s first two courses (23 years old) when joining the few opportunities that Zidane gave him, the player’s adaptation problems and his numerous extra-sports incidents, accumulated above all during the pandemic (he jumped the state of alarm in Belgrade to celebrate his girlfriend’s birthday, he broke his calcaneus at his home in the Serbian capital when jumping a wall, made a barbecue without a mask and not keeping a safe distance in the first stage of the pandemic when everything was more penalized …). Since he has been here he has only scored two goals and has given two assists, very poor numbers. In fact, its price on Transfermarkt has dropped to a third, from the 60 million it cost to the 20 that it now has as the market price. But as AS learned, Ancelotti is convinced that he can rescue the version of Jovic that brought him to Madrid, and he has made it known to the player himself so that he can regain confidence, something he completely lost in Zidane’s stage.

On the contrary, Carletto has explained to Mariano (28 years old) that he will count very little this season and that it would be good if he accepted some of the offers that come to him before the market closes. However, the same thing that happened with Zizou is repeated with Mariano. The Spanish-Dominican, who in all of last season only scored one goal (against Villarreal), prefers to stay in Madrid even knowing that he is barely going to play. He still has two years left on his contract, at five million net per season, a dissuasive amount that he does not intend to lower since the clubs that have knocked on his door cannot afford that high token. Consequently, this season we will see much more of Jovic (Benzema, who will turn 34 in December, has returned to France and that will force him to take more breaks this year), while Mariano will continue in the squad in a residual way and with increasingly sporadic appearances. Ancelotti has decided: Jovic, yes; Mariano, no.