Real Madrid: The three worst signings of the Zinedine Zidane era

Theo Hernandez

This name might look like a surprise because Theo Hernandez is one of the best left-backs in the world right now. But back in 2017-18, Theo Hernandez was a flop for Real Madrid, and he couldn’t live up to the expectations.

Theo Hernandez was brought in for a fee of 24 million euros from Atletico Madrid, his boyhood club, in the summer of 2017. The idea behind signing the Frenchman was to use him as a backup to the legendary Brazilian Marcelo. Though his role wasn’t an important one, the fact that he was signed from direct rivals of Los Blancos, Atletico Madrid, created a lot of hype.

The initial impressions of him in the pre-season in the United States were good, and his explosive nature caught everyone’s eye. Defensively he looked okay, but offensively there were some weak points, particularly related to his crossing. He had the pace and skill to get into dangerous positions on the left flank, but his poor decision-making and crossing abilities disappointed many.

As the season progressed, his defensive vulnerabilities were also exposed, and his performance became even more disappointing. There were flashes of brilliance, but the consistency wasn’t there. Zidane experimented by using Marcelo as the winger with Theo as the fullback on the left to make use of their abilities, but that didn’t work out well.

He got 1648 minutes across all competitions that season and got 2 assists to his name, but on a whole, it was a disappointing season. Zidane left, Lopetegui came and he preferred the La Fabrica graduate Sergio Reguilon over Theo. Theo left on loan to Real Sociedad for the 2018/19 season and was sold to AC Milan in June 2019, as the likes of Ferland Mendy, Reguilon, and Marcelo were already there to compete for the left-back position.

Though he left as a Real Madrid flop, he has turned around his career and as I mentioned earlier, right now he’s one of the best in his position, and he belongs to the category of players who have proved that there is life beyond Real Madrid.