Ranking the top five left back options for Real Madrid in 2022/23

3. Fran Garcia

Let us imagine a scenario where the club doesn’t see the second-ranked player as Ferland Mendy’s backup. In such a situation we would be forced to buy a left-back from the transfer market, and there are a lot of options in the market. But the best choice then would be Fran Garcia, another La Fabrica graduate, who has proved himself in LaLiga with an excellent spell at Rayo Vallecano.

According to a report from Sergio Santos of AS, Real Madrid have shown interest in buying back the 22-year-old Garcia from Rayo. The club still holds 50% of Garcia’s rights, and given his release clause of just 10 million euros, Real Madrid can get him for an amount as low as 5 million euros.

At the moment he might not be a player that has the ability to start for Real Madrid week in week out, but he is definitely a player who is good enough to be Ferland Mendy’s backup and can perform his duties well when asked to fill in for the Frenchman. He is a very quick player who shows great attacking intent on the pitch and is also a decent defender. He has practically overachieved in his loan spell at Rayo last season as there weren’t many expectations on him, and he has also shown a lot of improvement in these two seasons.

I believe that he has just done enough to be hopeful of a move back to his boyhood club, and there are a lot of reasons to see Fran Garcia as the replacement for Marcelo.