Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho is still taking stock of his team in the preseason, and while the main focus of Florentino Perez hiring the Portuguese legend was to get him to get the superstars at the club to actualy get on the same page together and play like true superstars, it seems as though the former Chelsea coach has taken the most liking in the preseason to a few youngsters.
Franco Mastantuono and Gonzalo Garcia are mentioned heavily in loan rumors, with Fulham and former Real Madrid manager Alvaro Arbeloa interested in taking both of them to the Premier League. Mourinho is a big fan of both Garcia and Mastantuono as well, and his thinking is to evaluate them first in the preseason before deciding if he needs them or if they are better served going on loan to get more minutes.
Garcia is making a massive impression on Mourinho and looks almost guaranteed to stay, since Mou is really pushing for him to stay. And now, Mastantuono is surprisingly strongly impressing Mourinho, to the point where a loan that was once guaranteed is now being debated a little bit.
Gonzalo Garcia could be out of Madrid regardless
Now, though, there may be a twist in the puzzle regarding Gonzalo Garcia. According to a report from Matteo Moretto of MARCA, Jose Mourinho wants to keep Garcia, but Fulham are so highly interested in the player that they see him as the next pillar of their attack. And they are willing to spend a lot of money to sign Garcia. He is their main transfer target. But as with the Nico Paz deal, even if Fulham spend a lot to sign Garcia, Real Madrid would still retain his future rights to buy him back.
Real Madrid were initially floating around figures of 60 million euros at the beginning of the transfer window when everyone thought the young striker was for sure leaving the Santiago Bernabeu, as Bundesliga giants Borussia Dortmund were very interested in him a a replacement for Le Sulk 2.0, Serhou Guirassy.
Alvaro Arbeloa had a great relationship with Garcia last season and sees his clear talent and qualities, especially his high character and foootballing intelligence. But Jose sees those qualities, too. The problem for Jose is that Real Madrid president Florentino Perez really, really wants Micahel Olise on the right wing, and while Garcia's profile is important at the 9 behind Kylian Mbappe, Olise is more important to Mbappe and Madrid to win now - and Real already have Endrick.
So Florentino could put pressure on Mourinho to sell Garcia, take the money, and use that to fuel Olise if there is any hope at all that Real Madrid could sign Olise from Bayern Munich this summer - and slowly but surely, that does seem to be the case with Olise hinting he wants to go this year.
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