Real Madrid: The three worst signings of the Zinedine Zidane era
Luka Jovic
In my opinion, Luka Jovic’s signing is the one that shows the lack of sporting vision in Real Madrid’s youth development transfer policy. Luka Jovic was purchased from Eintracht Frankfurt in the summer of 2019, for a fee of 60 million. Jovic’s great 2018/19 season with the German club and his high price tag made the fans have huge expectations of him, but he failed to live up to them, and Zidane had a role to play behind his failure at Real Madrid.
Luka Jovic was touted to be the replacement for Karim Benzema in the future, but looking at the way he was used by Zinedine Zidane, there was a doubt about his role, as he never got proper chances and was reduced to a backup role. He never got proper minutes under Zidane, and his only proper chances came when Benzema was injured. He got to play 32 matches, which looks like a good number of chances, but he got to play only 1014 minutes in those 32 games.
Everything went wrong for him since his first game. He had trouble adjusting to Spain and Real Madrid, and he was quite disappointing in the few chances he got. He looked to be disconnected from the game and chances started to dry up with time. He had frequent injuries at Madrid, and he had some off-the-field issues, which didn’t help his case. He ended up with just 2 goals and 2 assists in 1014 minutes, and those numbers are enough to label him as a flop.
But the reason why I’ve said that his signing exposes the sporting vision of the Real Madrid board headed by chief executive Jose Angel Sanchez is different. He was touted to be a long-term replacement for Benzema, but in reality, he was a completely different striker from Benzema. He wasn’t a mixture of a nine and a ten like Benzema.
He was more of a second striker who would play off another striker, and get into dangerous positions with his clever off-the-ball movement. He wouldn’t be active in linkup and press aggressively like Benzema or Mariano, but he could’ve been an effective player if used properly. He wasn’t the replacement for Benzema, he was the perfect partner for Benzema. He could’ve been the goalscorer that could have brought the best out of Benzema.
But considering the presence of other wingers like Hazard, Rodrygo, Vinicius and Lucas, using a formation involving two strikers wouldn’t have been feasible for Zidane. Real Madrid got a great player for 60 million euros, but they bought a player who didn’t suit their system. That’s why I feel that this signing of Jovic exposes the lack of sporting vision, and he’s definitely among the worst signings ever made by Real Madrid. And the fact that Zidane had personally asked Jovic to come to Real Madrid shows that the mistake was from Zidane’s side as well.
Right now he’s on loan at Frankfurt and all is not done yet. He had a great start to his loan term, scoring three goals in his first two appearances as a substitute but then he slowed down gradually. Jovic’s future is still up in the air but considering the Erling Haaland rumours and the Serbian’s recent statements in the media, a return to Real Madrid looks unlikely.