It was always a head-scratcher of a move – Brahim Diaz was frustrated by not getting minutes at Manchester City so he moved to… wait for it… Real Madrid.
Almost 10 months on from switching to Spain he looks further away from advancing his career than when he was at City and a refusal to accept that he needs to go out on loan to a smaller club is at the heart of the standstill his career has reached.
Real Madrid have not given up on him. They don’t want to sell him. They cannot afford to sell him after paying €17m (£14.7m) for him last January with €5m (£4.3m) due in in add-ons if and when he starts totting-up appearances for them. It is unlikely he would fetch that amount were he sold now.
Brahim Diaz arrived at Real Madrid less than a year ago but seems to have gone backwards
Diaz (left) was at Manchester City before Real, but left to get more first-team opportunities
They want to send him somewhere for a season or two but now under the sole management of his father Sufiel Abdelkader, and living the dream of training with his boyhood idols Isco and Sergio Ramos, he doesn’t seem to want to go anywhere else.
Diaz was signed last January as part of Real Madrid’s ongoing change in transfer philosophy. The days of paying record fees to sign huge-name players from big rival clubs have looked gone over the last few summers.
For all the talk last summer of a €200m-plus bid for Neymar or Kylian Mbappe (now wanted at the cost of €300m (£259m) according to an AS front page with no great substance on Friday), Madrid never countenanced either deal last window because they simply can’t operate like that any more.
They have a €500m (£432m) stadium revamp to pay for and they don’t have the private money from an oil state owner as PSG do. They can sign big-name players who are in their final year of contract, which is why they were able to snare Eden Hazard for €100m (£86m), but attention is now turned on buying the next big thing before his fee has gone off the scale.
Diaz (left) does not want to leave Real on loan, unlike most of the club’s other youngsters
Andriy Lunin (pictured at Valladolid) is among the young players who have headed elsewhere
If it works it will knock the Galaticos model out of the park. A Madrid side in a few years time with Andriy Lunin in goal, the likes of Achraf Hakimi and Sergio Reguilon in defence, Alvaro Odriozola, Martin Odegaard, Fede Valverde and Takeshi Kubo in midfield, and Vinicius and Rodrygo Goes in attack will be worth a fortune, great to watch, and will have cost relatively little.
Diaz was buying into that very ‘project’ when he left the Etihad for the Bernabeu last January. The problem is that of the nine players named above all bar three have accepted loan deals as part of their football education.
Lunin went to Leganes and is now at Valladolid, Achraf is impressing at Dortmund, Reguilon is at Sevilla, Odegaard is on his third loan club now back in Spain with Real Sociedad, Valverde spent time at Deportivo, and Kubo is at Mallorca.
What makes Brahim believe he won’t benefit from doing likewise? It’s true that Zinedine Zidane likes him. He gave him game-time at the end of last season and he liked what he saw.
Zinedine Zidane (pictured with Luka Jovic) is a fan of Diaz but he’s well down the pecking order
Diaz (right) came on against Mallorca last weekend but has found game-time hard to come by
How could he not like the goal Brahim scored against Real Sociedad in the penultimate game of the season? Picking the ball up 35 yards out, dribbling it to the byline before scoring from a tight angle; it was one of the goals of Madrid’s season.
But Brahim was playing wide left of the front three and a month later Hazard signed ready to step into that position.
In Zidane’s 4-3-3 there is very little room for selection maneuver. Hazard plays on the left and Karim Benzema through the middle. That leaves one place and how many candidates are there for that one place in the team? Seven, if we count one long-term injury.
Gareth Bale would be the nominal starter if not for Zidane’s personal bias against him. Then there’s James Rodriguez – again not a Zidane favourite. Then there is Vinicius Junior and his even younger Brazilian pal Rodrygo who played in midweek against Galatasaray. Then there is the reliable Lucas Vazquez, Isco and the currently long-term injured Marco Asensio.
Gareth Bale (left) and James Rodriguez (right) are not Zidane favourites but are ahead of Diaz
Diaz is eighth-choice for a starting berth in Madrid, and it seems like he is wasting his career
Brahim is eighth choice for a starting berth, it’s no wonder his reluctance to go out on loan has given rise to the feeling he is wasting his career.
‘Look at David Silva, he had to go out on various loans and learn before he could become established,’ said Pep Guardiola last January about losing the then 19-year-old.
Like Zidane, Guardiola rates Brahim, a player whose lightning-quick two-footed style had impressed the City coach. But he had to let him leave.
Now without the guiding hand of Pere Guardiola, the Manchester City’s coach’s brother who moved him to Madrid but has cut ties with him and his father, he is ensconced at Madrid hoping the path to the first team will open up for him.
Injuries in pre-season did not help but it’s the competition that is really stifling him. Even with Bale out on Tuesday against Galatasaray, he never even made the bench. If he had it’s unlikely he would have come on before James and Vinicius.
Pep Guardiola (right) was a fan of Diaz, but the City boss’ brother has cut ties with the player
Diaz is earning around £3m a year at one of the biggest clubs in the world but isn’t playing
‘I just want to work hard and with that the chances will come,’ he said in his presentation at the start of the year.
He is at one of the biggest clubs in the world and earning an estimated €3.5m (£3m) a season. But he is not playing.
‘I did not want to go anywhere else after Manchester City: my first choice was Real Madrid, my second choice was Real Madrid and my third choice was Real Madrid,’ he said after joining.
His self belief is admirable but he may have to open up to different options if he is to become what both Guardiola and Zidane believe he has the potential to become.
