This article is part of Football FanCast’s Opinion series, which provides analysis, insight and opinion on any issue within the beautiful game, from Paul Pogba’s haircuts to League Two relegation battles…
Real Madrid have an extremely talented squad on their hands.
After all, the average age of their team stands at 26.6 years old, which suggests there is a decent blend of youth and experience in the squad.
But a problem that is often present with big teams such as Real Madrid is that not everyone can get a chance they deserve, and sometimes that means being completely frozen out of the squad.
Such a thing is currently happening to the 26-year-old Mariano Diaz, a product of Real Madrid’s youth academy, Castilla.
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Diaz was a huge prospect in his youth days prior to his big step up to the senior team in 2016.
Back then, he spent 32 games playing for Real Madrid C, scoring an impressive 16 goals and assisting two in the process. This incredible trend continued and, more importantly, improved upon his rise into the B team as he netted 32 goals and added one assist in just 43 games for the Castilla.
Needless to say, his eventual call-up to the seniors was expected and inevitable.
But ever since that moment in 2016, things gradually turned sour until he was transferred to Lyon the year after that.
Still, Diaz managed to prove Los Blancos wrong and continued impressing in France, recording 21 goals and six assists in 48 appearances for his new team.
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Surprisingly, Florentino Perez seemed convinced and the now 26-year-old was brought back to the Spanish capital in the summer of 2018.
And we’re yet to see him play ever since that moment.
More than ten games in, Diaz has hardly had a sniff of the squad, almost never being called-up and only gracing the bench when he was.
In retrospect, his transfer back to Real Madrid seems quite bizarre for that very reason and we still don’t know why it is that Zidane decided to keep the forward in the pipeline without giving him a proper shot.
Of course, since their squad is full of superstars like Karim Benzema, Eden Hazard, Gareth Bale and Luka Jovic, it’s not surprising that a player like Diaz is struggling for minutes.
But if that’s the case and Real Madrid knew he was not going to play much, if at all, why snatch him away from Lyon in the first place?
As things currently stand, that decision might hurt both them and the player in question.
We’ll have to wait and see if his fortune changes for the better but if the season so far has been any indication, that is highly unlikely.
