da imperador bet： This article is part of Football FanCast’s The Chalkboard series, which provides a tactical insight into teams, players, managers, potential signings and more…
da pinnacle： Real Madrid and injuries are really an interesting love story this summer. Just as they thought they’d already had enough of them of late and the bad luck is ending, a new one pops out of nowhere. Los Blancos have now officially confirmed that Luka Modric has joined the squad on the sidelines. This means that a certain 21-year-old could get a much bigger role in the upcoming fixtures.
On the chalkboard
It’s really difficult to keep track of all of Real Madrid’s injuries this summer. Currently, however, they have five players out of commission and have now added their Croatian midfielder to that unlucky group of people as their sixth injury.
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Naturally, all injuries are bad news and all hurt but they don’t hurt equally, and this one will definitely hurt bad. Real Madrid are bound to miss their Ballon d’Or winner on the pitch but even more so when we take into account that the Galacticos only really have three natural centre-midfielders in the squad and Modric was actually one of them.
That means that Zinedine Zidane might be forced to completely reshuffle the cards and reorganise the squad to find a solution. That, or he could simply give the 21-year-old Federico Valverde a chance.
A risk worth taking
It’s rather safe to say that so far, Valverde has had quite a supporting role at Real Madrid. The young midfielder was brought up from Castilla last summer and has so far featured in a total of 26 games for the Galacticos with no goals or assists to his name.
But there is quality there, hidden beneath the inexperience and youth. Valverde tallied three goals and an assist for the Castilla team before joining up with the senior squad and has also registered 25 games with Deportivo de la Coruna while spending time there on a loan deal.
Last season, he also averaged 0.6 key passes and 0.8 dribbles per game in a total of just 652 minutes he was given in La Liga but even though we can’t really compare that to Modric, Valverde is definitely on the right path.
This becomes more evident when we check out his slightly better defensive statistics: 0.8 tackles and 1.3 interceptions per game in La Liga in 2018/19 is not a bad average to have considering how little defending Real Madrid usually have to do.
Naturally, thinking he would come in and instantly outshine Modric would be crazy but maybe the time has come for Zidane put some trust into the youngsters, especially the ones hailing from Castilla.
And who knows, maybe Valverde repays it with good performances.
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