A boy from Croatia, Mateo Kovacic who used to play for Inter Milan in 2013, suddenly caught the eye of Real Madrid’s President Florentino Perez after the young star played some amazing football in Inter Milan. The President of Real Madrid took no time and bought Kovacic in 2015 and the transfer fee was €29 million.
No matter how much talent you have, it takes a lot of hard work and consistency to get in to the starting XI of Real Madrid and with Kovacic it was not different.
The tremendous midfield trio of Toni Kroos, Casemiro and Luka Modric was irreplaceable at that moment, but the coach of the team was Zinedine Zidane who used to rotate the squad regularly and as a result of that most of the players in the squad got the opportunity to show their worth.
Real Madrid won the 2016-17 La Liga especially because of the amazing rotations by Zidane. Whenever the so called B team played, they never failed to amaze with their amazing play and Kovacic was the one who always impressed with his eye-catching performances.
Kovacic seems unstoppable when he is moving the ball forward from the back. He has great skills and high soccer IQ and no need to mention that he learns something every day from Modric, his national team-mate and one of the greatest midfielders in the world.
The only reason Kovacic is so much underrated right now is people who don’t watch Real Madrid play regularly will never understand the value of Kovacic. For them, he is nothing but still a bench warmer. But if anyone watches him play in 3 matches in a row, their opinions will be changed in no time.
In the 2017/18 Spanish Super Cup’s first leg, the Real Madrid coach gave Kovacic a shot in place of Casemiro and it was quite an open-secret that Kovacic’s main job was to man mark Lionel Messi and throughout the whole match he performed so well that Zidane was bound to play Kovacic in the second leg too.
Real Madrid ended up winning the Spanish Super Cup 5-1 combining both the legs and Kovacic had a massive contribution in it. With that performance, the Croatian midfielder earned some more fans and proved once again why he should be called the most underrated footballer in the world right now
Kovacic can get a place in the starting XI of any team in the world right now and the day is not far away when he becomes a regular starter in Real Madrid if he keeps performing like this.
As we all know, Real Madrid is now making a team for the future, Kovacic can surely become the replacement of the magician Modric who is currently 32 years old.
In the 2017-18 season, Kovacic has already become one of the crucial members of the team and Zidane now often gives him the opportunity to start in some important matches. Needless to say, we are just few years away from seeing Kovacic become one of the greatest to represent Real Madrid.