What is going on with Isco at Real Madrid?
By Alex McVey
Isco Alarcón is struggling for form at the current moment, and is causing headlines for all the wrong reasons. What’s going on with Isco at Real Madrid?
Let me start this off by saying that I’m a huge Isco fan. The magic man from Malaga was one of Real Madrid’s best performers last season, despite only getting occasional minutes at the beginning of the year. Isco surged in Gareth Bale’s absence, and managed to finally put a nail in the coffin of the Isco vs James debate, resulting in James’ departure for Bayern Munich on loan this summer. When he’s in form, Isco can be simply unplayable.
But things just don’t seem to be clicking for Isco of late. Granted, the entire Real Madrid squad has been struggling on and off this season, so perhaps it’s a bit unfair to judge Isco too harshly for a dip in form. But there just seems to be something a bit off for Isco at the moment.
To his credit, Isco hasn’t been terrible. In fact, at times, and at certain things, he’s been quite good. His dribbling, work-rate, and ball retention abilities are top notch. But when Real Madrid are struggling to unlock defenses, Isco hasn’t been at his usual best in his contributions to the attack, often missing the last pass or dribbling himself somewhere up the pitch without an easy outlet or any idea of where the ball is going next. These issues were on full display against Espanyol, as Isco failed to make much of a positive impression on the match. I think even Isco fanboys like myself have to recognize that Isco just doesn’t look quite right at the current moment.
There are serious questions about whether Isco’s form has actually dropped, or whether Zidane is simply failing to get the most out of Isco with his tactical schemas. Zidane’s midfield has looked utterly disorganized this season, with a lack of clearly defined roles for the players in the center of the park. It seems that perhaps Isco is being asked to do too much on the pitch, and is ending up doing too little as a result. Toward the end of last season, Isco thrived in Madrid’s 4-4-2 Diamond setup. But this season it seems that the diamond has fallen apart, or been found out, and Zidane doesn’t appear to be optimizing Isco in the 4-3-3.
Zidane shocked the world when he put Isco in the starting lineup ahead of Gareth Bale for Real Madrid’s first leg against PSG. And while Isco did marvelously to contribute to the intense press Madrid implemented in the first half, it’s also true that Real Madrid didn’t really kick it into an extra gear that match until Isco exited the pitch. I’m not saying that means Isco was necessarily bad, but rather that the substitutions were more important for that particular match.
This all leaves Isco in a puzzling spot. If the rumors circulating in the media are to be believed, the suboptimal performances on the pitch have started bubbling over into drama off the pitch. When Isco was taken off against Espanyol, he meandered off the pitch lethargically. This has lead to a whole series of ridiculous hot takes, like Juanma Rodriguez for Marca who writes:
"It took Isco 28.15 seconds for him to leave the pitch after being substituted by Zinedine Zidane against Espanyol and it would hardly have taken longer if he had been a bull fighter lapping up the applause of the crowd after a kill."
Apparently Isco’s lackadaisical approach to exiting the pitch when Madrid were trying to scrape together a win did not sit well with Real Madrid’s Captain. Reports suggest that Isco’s behavior caused a clash with Sergio Ramos in the dressing room following the Espanyol match.
Who knows whether there’s any truth to those claims about a dressing room dust-up. What I do know is that the reports have set off a wave of rumors about Isco potentially transferring away from the club, with Arsenal, Chelsea, and Manchester United all named as potential destinations.
Next: How did Real Madrid fare in February?
The only thing certain about Isco at Real Madrid right now is uncertainty. And that’s a troubling fact for Madrid fans who have fallen in love with the bandy-legged beauty and his dazzling brand of football.