Real Madrid’s five worst loan deals of the last five years
2. Andriy Lunin to Leganes and Real Valladolid (2018-20)
Real Madrid signed two goalkeepers in the summer of 2018, and both of them are playing for the current Real Madrid first-team at the moment. They are Thibaut Courtois and Andriy Lunin, and the latter was signed by the club from Zorya Luhansk as a part of their youth investment strategy.
Lunin was signed keeping in mind the long-term plan, and he was never going to get a chance in a team that had Courtois, Keylor Navas, and Kiko Casilla. He was still very young at that point, so Real Madrid decided to loan him out to another Madrid-based club, Leganes, for a year.
It was always going to be difficult for him to get a lot of playing time at a club that already has Pichu Cuellar as their first-choice keeper, and the club should have kept that in mind. And eventually, Lunin didn’t get to play a lot for Leganes, as he played just 364 minutes in LaLiga and 180 minutes in Copa Del Rey. Lunin left Leganes after a disappointing year, and Leganes had to pay a fine for underutilising the Ukrainian.
A year was wasted in the youngster’s career, but the club made an even bigger mistake by loaning him to Real Valladolid for the 2019/20 season. Keylor Navas left Real Madrid late in the transfer window that season, and if the Costa Rican left the club a little earlier, Lunin could’ve stayed at Real Madrid as the second-choice goalkeeper.
A change of clubs didn’t change Lunin’s fortunes, as he got to play zero minutes in the league for Valladolid, and was only limited to appearances in the Spanish Cup. This angered Real Madrid a lot and they terminated the deal in January and loaned him to second division Real Oviedo, where he got to play consistently.
Valladolid’s manager made it clear that Lunin will play only in the Copa Del Rey after he had just arrived at Valladolid. This will make everyone think “Why didn’t Real Madrid plan properly before loaning a player to a club?”. Such situations could’ve been easily avoided with proper talks, instead of just loaning players on the basis of their relations with other clubs.