Isco trusts Lopetegui to recover his best game

The man from Malaga meets again in Seville with the last coach who bet on him

MADRID, 9 Ago. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The transfer market has left one of the most anticipated reunions in Spanish football, that of Isco Alarcón and Julen Lopetegui, who excites the fans of a Sevilla FC in which player and coach will try to make the football of Malaga shine again and be key code.

The player will once again be under the orders of the coach who gave him the most stripes both in Real Madrid and in the Spanish team. Here's a look at the relationship between the two:

The only time that Francisco Alarcón and Julen Lopetegui have been together at club level was at Real Madrid, where the coach arrived after his dismissal from the Spanish team the day before the 2018 World Cup, starting with the whites in the 18/19 season , the first after the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo.

Although Lopetegui's journey at Real Madrid was not good on a collective level, for Isco it was one of the stretches where he accumulated the most minutes. Of the 14 games of this stage, the one from Arroyo de la Miel started in eight, and missed four due to appendicitis, playing minutes whenever he was available.

In this time Isco scored two goals, and without him on the field, the white team achieved a draw and three defeats. After the coach's dismissal, his participation decreased significantly with Santiago Solari, although he regained ownership at certain times with Zinédine Zidane. He only left from the beginning nine times since the departure of the Basque.

With the national team, Isco was a fixture for Julen Lopetegui. Of the 19 games in which the now Sevilla manager has led the national team, the midfielder has played 13 of them, missing only two friendlies due to rest and four due to injury.

Isco was the beacon of the team that qualified for the 2018 World Cup, scoring eight goals under Lopetegui, including an exhibition at the Santiago Bernabéu in a direct duel against Italy in which the man from Malaga scored the first two goals, or the friendly in which Spain beat Argentina 6-1 with his own hat-trick.

After the dismissal of the coach, his participation was plummeting. After the World Cup, Isco only played four more games for the national team, wearing the national team shirt for the last time in the summer of 2019.

The first time that both coincided was when the coach was the U-19 national coach. Lopetegui called up a young 18-year-old Isco who was in Valencia's youth academy for four games, in which the man from Malaga responded with four goals.

History repeated itself the following year at the U-20 World Cup, in which the midfielder was one of the most important players for Lopetegui, starting in 4 of the 5 games and leading a team that fell on penalties against Brazil.

The adventure improved with the U-21 team, in which the Basque coached the team that was proclaimed champion of Euro 2013. In it, Isco started in all the games and scored three goals, including one against Norway in the semifinal and another against Italy in the final, in what was the takeoff of the Malaga player towards the absolute.

This fruitful relationship that began in 2010 is the illusion that sevillismo clings to after the signing of Isco, who arrives at the Seville team at a good age, 30 years old, but after leaving many doubts with Real Madrid in the last two seasons .

After Lopetegui's departure from the white club, Isco's participation decreased each year. In the 2019/20 academic year he dropped from 37 to 30 games played, and from then on each course his minutes decreased. Of the more than 1,700 minutes he played the year the Basque was there, just two years later, in the 20/21 season, that figure barely exceeded 1,000 in all competitions.

Last season the case was even more dramatic. With Carlo Ancelotti on the bench, Isco played a total of 407 minutes, participated in just 17 games and only started three times, two of them in August. In that time he did not distribute any assistance and scored two goals, one in LaLiga in the 6-1 win over Mallorca and another to tie in extra time in the Copa del Rey against Elche.

Now Isco is reunited with the coach who was able to extract his talent and who has trusted him the most, being the last one to have blind faith in his talent. If both recover the 'feeling' of yesteryear, Isco could display the football that he has, the one that made him be called to lead Real Madrid, and that finally did not explode when he lost the confidence of his coaches after the departure of Lopetegui.