Manchester City hero dreamed of joining Real Madrid

Real Madrid could do with another centre-back at this point in time. They lost arguably their best defender to a long-term injury, as Eder Militao tore his ACL in the first league game of the season against Athletic Bilbao. It is possible that the Brazilian could be out of action for the entirety of the 2023/24 campaign and certainly won’t be available for the majority of it.

In the absence of Militao, Carlo Ancelotti has three centre-backs available to him in the form of David Alaba, Antonio Rudiger and Nacho. All highly-experienced players, who are capable of starting on a consistent basis.

They are all over 30 years of age though. And Alaba struggled with a few injuries last season himself.

Thus, it is certainly a risk on the part of Real Madrid to go into the season with this backline. But that might be exactly what they are planning to do. And it looks like they have passed up on the opportunity to sign a centre-back from Manchester City.

Manchester City hero dreamed of joining Real Madrid

As reported by The Athletic, Aymeric Laporte had hoped for a move to a bigger club and his dream would have been either Barcelona or Real Madrid. But they were not ready to make a move.

Laporte had joined Manchester City back in the January transfer window of 2018 in a £57 million deal. He spent five-and-a-half years in the Premier League club, winning 13 trophies during that period of time.

While there is no doubt about Laporte’s quality, the Spaniard has struggled with injuries over the years. On the other hand, Real Madrid already have their fair share of fitness problems at the moment. As a result, adding him to the mix might not have been the greatest idea and it is easy to see why Los Blancos did not make a move.