Few times in Real Madrid history we could see a player with less minutes in the squad. It’s not just that Fabio Coentrao is not playing but he’s always injured and the times we had the opportunity to see him the performances were really poor. How Fabio Coentrao is able to stay in the best club in the world? This is a mystery.
Zinedine Zidane keeps defending the professionalism of Fabio Coentrao. However, the Portuguese is never in the list because he always gets injured: “If he is not with us this is because he’s not fully recovered, it’s not important. His injury was serious and he had some pain that keep him away from training”, Zidane said yesterday in press conference.
In La Liga, for instance, he has only played 22 minutes in the game against Granada. In Copa del Rey he played 32 minutes in the first round against Third Division team Cultural Leonesa. And, curiously enough, he played more minutes in the Champions League, enjoying time in the pitch against Sporting Portugal and Legia Warsaw. 96 minutes in total in Europe, where he committed a odd penalty in Lisbon.
Coentrao arrived to Madrid in 2011 and Los Blancos paid €30M to Benfica. He has never been the most important left back in the squad because Marcelo is the owner of this positions. However, there were some important games, for instance in the Champions League semifinals in 2014 with Carlo Ancelotti, where Coentrao played as a left back showing a great level. But these were the exceptions.
Last season, he left Real Madrid to play on loan with Monaco. In Ligue One he only played 15 games with Monaco and after got injured and forgotten. He also missed the Euro in France, where his national team won the trophy. Florentino Pérez couldn’t find another club for the Portuguese so he stayed one year more in the Spanish capital.
His contract expires in 2019 and he’s currently earning €2.5M per year. Obviously, this is a very high salary for a player who never actually wear the white t-shirt. Real Madrid will have a serious problem this summer if they want to get rid of Coentrao. He had some offers from China and this country could be his possible destination. He’s only 29 year old, so he could have a long career. Which club could afford to pay a high salary for a footballer that never play?
