Real Madrid: Five players Florentino Perez must regret not selling sooner

Mariano Diaz

Instead of labeling Mariano as a player who should’ve been sold earlier, he should be labeled as a player who should’ve never been purchased. He shouldn’t have been awarded a 5 million euros per year wage, and above all, he should’ve never been given the iconic number 7.

With all due respect to Mariano, every problem in his Real Madrid career began since the day he was signed. He was signed from Olympique Lyonnais in 2018 after a breakout season in 2017/18, at the request of the then manager Julen Lopetegui. Lopetegui wanted him to be Benzema’s backup, and his wonder goal against Roma on his Champions League debut raised the expectations.

But everything went downhill from there, as the fans got to understand more and more of his weaknesses, thereby coming to a conclusion that he is not a player of Real Madrid’s level, though the Dominican is a La Fabrica graduate. and recurring injuries ensured that he stayed on the sidelines for most of the time, with him being unavailable whenever the team needed him. According to Transfermarkt, Mariano missed a total of 53 games in the last four seasons due to 18 different injuries.

This made the club sign another striker in Luka Jovic in the summer of 2019 and aimed to sell Mariano. But Mariano didn’t move from Real Madrid, though he was never going to get proper minutes at the club, putting his career at risk. There were offers for Mariano, but the clubs were never able to meet the number 24’s demands.

This summer, Real Madrid were finally going to get rid of Mariano as he reached an agreement with Valencia. But according to Mariano’s agent David Aranda, the deal broke off on the last day due to unknown reasons. This just adds insult to the injury and makes Perez regret a lot that he couldn’t get to sell Mariano earlier because his contract expires in 2023, and he would have to be sold for a minimal amount in 2022, if possible.