Real Madrid round-up: Back in Spain, Isco, Zidane, Kovacic

Real Madrid are back in Spain after their US Tour, where they made 12 million euros. Zidane gets a salary bump and the Italians want Isco and Kovacic.</br><a title="Real Madrid-Fuenlabrada live online: 2017/18 Copa del Rey" href="https://en.as.com/en/2017/11/28/football/1511861861_000260.html">Real Madrid v. Fuenlabrada live online</a>

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David Nelson

Scottish journalist and lifelong sports fan who grew up in Edinburgh playing and following football (soccer), cricket, tennis, golf, hockey… Joined Diario AS in 2012, becoming Director of AS USA in 2016 where he leads teams covering soccer, American sports (particularly NFL, NBA and MLB) and all the biggest news from around the world of sport.

Update: Aug 5th, 2016 07:39 EDT

Albania vs Spain live

Real Madrid are back in Spain

🛬🇪🇸✅

We've arrived in Madrid!#HalaMadrid pic.twitter.com/gebnPB9Th9
— Real Madrid C.F. 🇬🇧🇺🇸 (@realmadriden) August 4, 2016

Zidane and his Real Madrid squad landed in Madrid yesterday afternoon after returning from their US tour. They beat Bayern Munich 1-0 in their final game. Real Madrid face Seville next, in the UEFA Super Cup on Tuesday (20:45 CEST)

The US Tour brought in a neat 12 million euros for Madrid

The US mission has been declared a success by the club: it reinforced the club's image in a key strategic market (that's sexy football chat for you...) and brought in 12 million euros net, with all the expenses (travel, hotels etc) being paid for by the International Champions Cup.

In total 274,479 tickets were sold for Real Madrid's games (against PSG, Chelsea and Bayern). And for the first game, against PSG, there were 86,641 fans in the Ohio Stadium, a record for soccer in the state.

Real Madrid round-up: Back in Spain, Isco, Zidane, Kovacic — Ohio stadium for Real Madrid-PSG

It's clear Madrid are in demand in the US of A.

Zidane doubles his salary

Real Madrid wanted to reward Zidane for his work since he took over from Benítez (one Champions League in the bag for example). The coach will see his income jump from 2.7 million euros a year to 5.5 million, but he's still behind what Ancelotti was on, and a long, long way off Mourinho and Guardiola in Manchester...

Kovacic a possible replacement for Pogba at Juve

Although Pogba still hasn't moved to Man Utd, everybody (well, almost everybody...) expects the deal to go through sooner rather than later. And to cover the Pogba sized hole in their squad Juventus would really like to get their hands on Real Madrid's Kovacic. The Croatian isn't vital to Zidane's plans... so he could be on his way to Italy to cover Pogba's departure.

Milan like the cut of Isco's jib

According to the Gazzetta dello Sport Milan are in talks with their Chinese investors Fosun to organise the funds to make a bid for Real Madrid's Isco. Jorge Mendes, super agent supreme, is involved apparently.