With Carlo Ancelotti in the Real Madrid dugout and Gareth Bale in the Spanish capital after a spell at Tottenham, there’s been a major sense of deja vu at the Bernabeu this season.
Last time, the arrival of the two men helped Madrid win a tenth European Cup in the 2013-14 season. Ancelotti has enjoyed a superb return to the club, though this time Bale isn’t one of his trusted lieutenants – the Welshman has barely featured and will surely wave goodbye when his contract expires at the end of the season.
In 2013, though, they were not the only arrivals at the Santiago Bernabeu. Alongside Bale, Real Madrid signed four other players to strengthen the Italian manager’s squad. Here, we take a look at how each of them have fared since.
Dani Carvajal
Carvajal wasn’t exactly a new face around the Valdebebas training ground when he turned up in 2013.
The young Spaniard was Madrid through and through. He’d been at the club since the age of 10, he’d help lay the foundation stone of Valdebebas itself, he’d captained the club’s Real Madrid Castilla reserve side for two seasons. But, aged 20 and unable to break in Jose Mourinho’s first team, he’d been sold to Bayer Leverkusen in 2012 for €5million.
Yet aware of Carvajal’s potential, Los Blancos had inserted a buy-back clause into the contract. After a single season of the right-back proving himself in the Bundesliga, Madrid activated that clause and repatriated him for €6.5million. It’s proved a decent bit of business.
Carvajal got straight into the Madrid starting XI upon his return and has rarely been dislodged since, becoming a trusted lieutenant of Ancelotti and Zinedine Zidane.
After the third of his four Champions League successes with the club in 2017, Marca ran an article asking if he is the best right-back in Real Madrid history. We’d say yes. But they probably weren’t asking us, were they?
Casemiro
When Casemiro left Sao Paulo in 2012, a lot of the Brazilian club’s fans were…
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