Three bones for Madrid

Real Madrid advances in the 2021-22 season, with a good step (League leader with a nine-point difference with nine games to go, in the Champions League quarter-finals), although licking the wounds caused by the setback that took place in the last Clásico at the Bernabéu (0-4). And while he walks towards a probable double (he has already won the Spanish Super Cup and has the League on track, although not certified), he works on the planning of the next season and the next project, the one that Mbappé will lead and, with a bit of luck, Haland too.

The club’s idea is clear: one or two cracks (if the Norwegian can arrive in reasonable conditions, they will try, although there is a lot of competition), some more signings to encourage competition in the rest of the field and strengthen the team also with the return on loan and with some homegrown players. But for this, it is necessary to generate space in the squad, for which Madrid is preparing to try to leave several footballers. Some will be easy to put on; others, not so much.

There are three certified departures, due to contract termination: Bale, Marcelo and Isco. The three are already in their twilight stage, as far as sports performance is concerned, and they have practically not counted this season: between the three of them, they do not even add 1,200 minutes this season. They will not renew, they will leave the club after having been important in the most glorious stage of the modern era of Real Madrid (that of the four Champions in five years) and will generate an important salary space: 60 million euros, since Bale earns 30 gross a year, Marcelo, 16 and Isco, 14.

Mariano, Jovic and Hazard

However, there are three departures that point to being three hard nuts to crack for the white club’s management: Hazard, Mariano and Jovic. Each case with its particularities, but with a common factor: they are three high-wage players who would generate significant savings, something essential to undertake the operations that Madrid intends for this summer. Hazard receives about 30 million gross per season, Jovic 10 and Mariano 9. In total, there are almost 50 million salary bills for three players who hardly count: between the three they do not add up to 1,600 minutes.

Hazard’s is the most complicated case, for obvious reasons: his salary of 30 million gross scares off all suitors. It is difficult to find someone who pays such amounts to a player who in the last three years has scored only six goals and has spent half the time injured. Madrid paid 100 million euros for him to Chelsea in 2019 (plus another target amount, although this part is unlikely to have been executed given its poor performance) and is under contract until 2024. The amortization of his signing is 20 million a year, so his estimated price, with two seasons still under contract, it would be around 40 million. A chimera today, in which the value of him for Transfermarkt is 16 million.

Most likely, Madrid will have to reach an agreement similar to the one it already reached for Bale in the 2020-21 academic year: a transfer in which it takes over part of the recordwith the hope that Hazard recovers part of his level and thus can have candidates willing to pay for his transfer in the summer of 2023. The best asset for Madrid is Hazard’s sporting ambitions, which in Madrid have not exactly stood out , but they do carry some weight with your selection. The one in Qatar will be his last World Cup and, if he stays in Madrid and does not play (which is very likely with the presence of Benzema and Vinicius and the possible arrivals of Mbappé and Haaland), Roberto Martínez could not call him. That’s where Madrid can find a way out, if it also finds a club that wants to cover part of its enormous salary.

Jovic is in a similar circumstance, saving the distances. Just three goals since he signed for Madrid in 2019 (he spent half a season on loan at Eintracht Frankfurt) after paying 60 million euros. His introverted character and his continuous controversies (he skipped quarantine, he was injured falling from a terrace in his own home, he had a fight with his coach, in the worst of the pandemic he brought a friend from Belgrade and caught COVID… .) do not help to find you equipment. In favor of Madrid is that the salary is not so exorbitant (five million net per season) and that he seems to be willing to change the air to play regularly. He has a contract until 2026 and, to recover the investment for him, Madrid would have to enter around 30 million, an impossible amount today. His appraisal is 20 million and it is difficult for him to receive even that amount.

And finally, Mariano, who has clung to his contract since he arrived at Real Madrid. The Hispanic-Dominican landed in 2018 from Lyon, where he spent a season in which he shone with 21 goals, but Lopetegui’s dismissal was a shot to his waterline. Solari didn’t count on him very much, Zidane even less and Ancelotti doesn’t go out of his way either because of his way of playing. He hasn’t helped him match up with the best possible version of Benzema either.

However, in this context, he has systematically refused to leave Madrid in three consecutive summers (2019, 2020 and 2021). His salary, of 4.5 million euros net per season, is an important brake, but he also does not want to give up life in Madrid. Last summer he timidly opened the door to a transfer to Valencia, but it did not materialize. El Rayo also offered him a loan that would not even have required a move and that would have guaranteed him minutes, but he refused. In Madrid they will try again this summer, but a similar position is expected from the player. Most likely, his contract will end in 2023 and he will go free; At the moment he has barely scored six goals in almost four seasons with white.

Ceballos and Vallejo, simpler

Those three are the most complicated cases; Then come others with a much simpler resolution, since they involve considerably lower salaries and players who are more open to leaving without causing difficulties.. There is Vallejo, who knows that he does not count and for whom his agents are looking for a way out, in which Madrid will give him facilities, having as he has central defenders in the quarry that can play that role of fourth defender in the squad, like Marín, Pablo Ramon or Gila.

Or Ceballos, who was prevented by injury from looking for suitors last summer, a problem aggravated by his own desire to play in the final of the Olympic Games. In his case, he seems sure that Betis will make a proposal in the summer. And even Lunin, with whom Madrid is happy in that role as Courtois’ substitute, but who needs to play if he wants to return to his national team. If he asks out, his case will be studied.