Carlo Ancelotti confirms Marco Asensio wants to leave Real Madrid
The Italian coach confirmed the news after winning the Coach of the Year award at the UEFA gala.
Minutes after Real Madrid’s opponents in Group F (Leipzig, Shakhtar and Celtic) were announced, Carlo Ancelotti won the Best Coach award, and he spoke about one of the hot topics at Madrid. “Marco is looking at something to see if he can leave,” Ancelotti said of Asensio. Admittedly, the Reggiolo man also hinted that “if he doesn’t leave, he will remain a Madrid player”, implying that he would count on him during the season. Even so, the Spanish winger’s intention is clear: to leave Madrid.
The start of the 2022-2023 season has not been easy for the Spaniard. After a pre-season in which Asensio was already losing importance in Ancelotti’s tactical ideology, the European Super Cup final and the first league games confirmed that. The dynamic changed against Celta Vigo at Balaídos, but he only played seven minutes, when the game was completely settled. Rodrygo is expected to return from injury against Espanyol, and that adds more question marks over the Mallorcan winger’s future.
New contract offer for Asensio
With a contract until June 2023, the club naturally prefer not to lose the player for free next year, and have not put a renewal offer on the table to extend his contract. Arriving in 2018 and after an explosive start where Asensio was tipped to be the heir to the BBC, an injury against Arsenal in pre-season three summers ago was a blip in his progression and, at the moment, his future is more up in the air than ever.
The 2021-22 season was good for him, alternating starts with Rodrygo for much of the season. However, in the last part of the season, the important games, Ancelotti started to use Valverde on the right and the Brazilian as a substitute. Asensio was left without a place and his future was beginning to be questioned. Despite this, he was the team’s third top scorer for the season with 12 goals, ahead of Rodrygo’s nine.
Jorge Mendes
In April this year, he joined Gestifute, the agency run by agent Jorge Mendes. Asensio knew it was a decisive summer for him and decided to change his agent. Even so, Madrid have not made him an offer, nor have there been any approaches between the club and the player.