Among the seven players whose contract ends in 2023 in the white dressing room, there is a special case: that of Dani Ceballos. The Sevillian had decided to leave last summer, but there were no significant offers for him and the one he expected, the one from Betis, did not come for financial reasons, with the Verdiblanco team struggling until the last moment of the transfer market to register their players. Given this situation, Ceballos chose to hurry his last year in Madrid, opening a totally new melon: that of a possible future in white that already seemed ruled out for him.
Ceballos arrived at Madrid in 2017 in exchange for 16.5 million euros from Betis, after rejecting several offers from other teams, including one from Barcelona. His first course was disappointing, as he barely had minutes, and after Zidane’s departure he dedicated words to the Marseillais in the media that made the coexistence of both in the locker room impossible when Zizou returned to relieve Solariin 2019. He spent two years on loan at Arsenal and last season an untimely injury during the Games cut short his transfer.
Ancelotti welcomed him as one of the squad and always gave him kind words in public, although in practice he used him as a residual player: he played 338 minutes. Although in the final stretch he showed that he saw possibilities in Utrera’s, giving him minutes in all the quarterfinals, semifinals and in the Champions League final, in addition to some starts in the League, with the championship already resolved or about to be.
“Ancelotti apologized to me”
“Ceballos has not played the minutes he deserved in training. He is one of the few that he has had less than he deserved”, explained Ancelotti himself publicly. Something that he also did privately with Ceballos, as the player himself revealed: “He told me to forgive him because he had not played what he should have played, and that honors him.” In this situation, the summer that we have just left behind was reached, in which Ceballos did not find the destination he was looking for and in which Ancelotti saw himself with the opportunity to recover the Sevillian for the white cause. For now, he has already given him 124 minutes and is one of Carletto’s recurring changes in the final stages of the game. He has participated in eight of the nine official meetings.
An obvious sign that Ancelotti wants to give Ceballos much more affection than he felt last season. Although it is probably not enough: the player from Utrera has always shown himself to be a nonconformist player who wants to be a regular in the eleven, although he also has great confidence in his possibilities and aspires to take advantage of the minutes that fall to him to reverse his situation.
The decision that Madrid and he himself must make will depend on how he does between now and June. The club has to opt for an upward renewal offer to tempt him to stay or just let him go; and he, for a new destination or for a future in Madrid that almost nobody already had for the talented midfielder.
