Jovic was supposed to replace Benzema, but he’s just sitting out at Real Madrid

Luka Jovic came to Real Madrid with high expectations. He scored 27 goals and added 6 assists in his last season in Frankfurt. But in Spain, his career has stalled completely.

After the departure of Álvaro Morata, Real Madrid did not have a reliable and quality striker to replace Karim Benzema in his absence. That’s why in the summer of 2019, Real didn’t hesitate to shell out 63 million euros for Luka Jovic.

After all, Jovic had just had the season of his life. He scored 17 league goals and added 5 assists in Frankfurt. In the Europa League he reached the semi-finals with his team, where Frankfurt lost to Chelsea on penalties. By the way, both semi-finals ended 1-1 and Jovic scored in both games. Along the way, the Silvoy striker scored a total of 10 goals and assisted on one.

All this at just 21 years old. His potential and future was huge, which is why Madrid decided to engage Jovic even for this money.

But Jovic was already coming with a difficult position. He knew very well that Karim Benzema was the unshakable number one in Los Blancos’ attack and it would be up to him to fill in for him or complement him in his absence. Perhaps in the future, he will take over his role.

But this role did not suit him at all. The Serbian striker needs to feel the confidence of the coach, he needs to spend time on the pitch to gain game confidence. But he didn’t get it and his performance went down rapidly.

Real Madrid

In his first season in the white jersey, he jumped through all competitions in 27 games and scored 2 goals. At the start of last season, it looked like he would finally break through. He was finally given a proper chance by Zinedine Zidane, starting in the starting line-up in the first two league rounds.

But Jovic threw that opportunity away. He lost the confidence of the French strategist completely and only played 4 league games and one Champions League game in the winter. In the winter he went on loan to Frankfurt to find his lost form.

And what he had left behind in Germany’s fifth largest city, he immediately found there again. On his restored debut, he came on at half-time and immediately scored 2 goals, deciding the 3-1 win over Schalke. He eventually added two more goals, returning to Madrid with his confidence at least partially restored.

His new coach, Carlo Ancelotti, could also guarantee him a fresh start. But it was clear from the start that he was not going to be the right fit. In the first round he was two minutes down, in the second round nine, in the third round not at all.

Ancelotti is a conservative coach and he doesn’t rotate the roster unless he has to. He relies on his key players and leaders who he would prefer to let play the whole game every time. Moreover, when Benzema is firing, no one can get him off the field.

Second chance

And if Jovic doesn’t do anything extra, it will be hard to get past him. Until the end of November he was like this, popping in for a few minutes or just staying on the bench. But in December, a glimmer of hope appeared.

Benzema was injured in the 17th minute at Real Sociedad and Jovic came on. He gave his undoubtedly best performance in his time at Real Madrid, first passing to Vinícius for a goal in the 47th minute and then scoring himself ten minutes later to seal a 2-0 win.

In the next game against Inter he was again in the starting line-up, he did a decent performance for 77 minutes, but he didn’t completely follow up his performance in San Sebastian. In the derby against Atlético, he replaced the injured Benzema at half-time and was part of the 2-0 win. However, his performance started to drop again, against Cadiz he came on for 21 minutes and did not show anything.

Injury struck and Jovic missed three games, sitting on the bench for the next two. Ancelotti even stopped trusting him so much that he preferred to use Asensio or Isco at the spearhead in Benzema’s absence. At the moment he is not counted on at all, he has spent the last 5 games only on the substitutes bench.

So it would be best for the 24-year-old striker to go somewhere where he can play regularly as soon as possible. At Real Madrid it will definitely not be, especially with the summer arrival of Kylian Mbappé and maybe Erling Haaland.

Source: Transfermarkt, Real Madrid