Surprisingly, Zinedine Zidane chose Danilo to replace Carvajal in the right back. When the Spanish defender got injured in the first leg at Santiago Bernabéu, Nacho was the chosen one to play in the second half and he did it great. Besides, Nacho was the defender with more minutes during the month of April, when Real Madrid played against Barcelona, Atlético or Bayern Munich. He shone in every single game.
However, in the second leg of the Champions League semi-finals against Atlético Madrid, Zinedine Zidane put Danilo in the line-up. It wasn’t the selection expected but Danilo was playing in La Liga correctly in the games against Sporting, Deportivo or Granada. But again the Brazilian player performance was very disappointing, giving many chances to Atlético Madrid.
In the 3rd minute, Danilo was already booked. He made a poor control and hit Filipe Luis. Yellow card. Simeone knew that the hole was in the right side of the defence, so Filipe Luis tried to attack from there and Atlético Madrid created a lot of problems from this wing. Another example of his poor performance arrived in the second half, when another poor control put Carrasco in front of Keylor Navas but the Costa Rican goalkeeper saved twice, after the shots of the Belgian striker and the header from Gameiro.
Zidane wants to have all the players available and ready to play, but some of them have shown during the season that they don’t have the level to play important games. Danilo is one of them. His quality is fine to play against Leganés or Deportivo, but he shouldn’t be able to start a Champions League semi-finals clash. Especially, when Nacho is on the bench, perhaps one of the best defenders in Europe this season.
Nacho has shown his quality as a left back, right back and centre back. With Varane fully recovered and Pepe also ready to be included in the list, Nacho should be move to the right back position and cover Carvajal absence.
Real Madrid paid €30M to Porto for Danilo two seasons ago and, since then, he hasn’t been able to play good two games in a row. Danilo has played 14 games this season in La Liga, whereas the last year he was in the pitch 24 games. He’s had many opportunities, but was Vicente Calderón his last chance?
Absolutely, I concord with this writer, Danilo is horrible, it was a wrong decision made by zidane to play him. Besides defending properly he does not have the ability to put in crosses for the strikers, he did not cross a single ball.