Oh boy. Isco is love. And i will fly to Madrid and kick Zizou ass if he will keep him on the bench again,,
8 - Isco Alarcon has scored more goals than any other midfielder in La Liga in 2017. Delight. pic.twitter.com/bp8j20qVWx— OptaJose (@OptaJose) April 26, 2017
Isco is now been unbeatean in his last 50 appearances for club and country (41 wins, 9 draws). Talk about a talisman. That's an incredible stat.
What makes him different from other technical Spanish midfielders like Iniesta, Silva is that he likes to score goals. He can really be a special one and go in the books as one of the best Spanish midfielders all time. Should only play every damn game. Does't matter for who.
Love the effort, making things happen in final third and sprinting back to break down their attack. Wonderful attitude.
Here's what I keep going back to... Let's say someone traveled back here from the future and showed us a video of Isco winning the Ballon d'Or in 2020. Would anyone really be surprised? How many players can you say that about? That's not a player you can let go. That's a player you pay the big money and make an indispensable part of your squad. If Isco played for any other club we'd be talking about dropping a Pogba-sized fee to bring him to Madrid.
Is there any other club in the world where he would be sitting on the bench right now? I can't think of one.
I think we have several players who would have the current hype levels of football's youngest stars like Dembele, Mbappe, etc if they were consistently playing for another team. I'm more surprised that Isco hasn't let the years of uncertainty and being benched by big names affect his development. There is a reason why he is a former Golden Boy winner and I'm thrilled we can finally see why he won that award years ago. He is finally the player I knew he was destined to be. Just needs to be given a chance to be a bonafide starter.
That's peanuts in today's market. 250 or 300 should be the minimum buy outs for players we don't want to lose.
What a development he has had in the past year or so. He's been phenomenal. It helps that his trickery is actually working out more often than not AND that it has purpose. Indispensible!
I don't think starting him on the wing is ideal. Modric really has not been that great lately so I would be inclined to put him in that spot, drop Benz (won't happen I know) and insert Ronaldo as a CF with Asensio on the left and James on the right. You would essentially have a lot of what makes the B-Team so good in the A-Team itself. Have Isco's work rate cover for James on the right in conjunction with Carvajal. Use Casemiro to cover for Marcelo primarily. Asensio also tracks back a fair bit for an attacking winger. Would work really well. But this late in the day, Zidane isn't changing anything.