Anti-Galactico: How Alvaro Morata’s Real Madrid departure propelled Juventus to the top
It has been a tumultuous couple of season for Alvaro Morata. Following a breakout performance in the 2013 U21 European Championship, in which he top scored, Morata was expected to start breaking into the Real Madrid first team as something of a Fernando Morientes reincarnate. However, after a promising start to the season, things quickly went downhill for the then 20 year-old. Once Gareth Bale got settled and Carlo Ancelotti made it clear he preferred fellow youngster Jese, Morata’s opportunities shrank, only playing when others were rested and once Jese suffered a season ending knee injury.
That lack of chances in the first team eventually led to a complete breakdown of Morata’s relationship with Ancelotti, necessitating a more over the summer. After receiving interest from Wolfsburg and Arsenal (among others), Juventus was the chosen destination, picked because of its title-winning potential, European football and willingness to insert a buy-back clause into Morata’s contract; Ancelotti may not have liked him, but someone at Madrid still did.
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While the competition at Juventus isn’t quite as stiff as Madrid’s, it was unlikely Morata was ever going to walk into starting line-up, and so it proved. After his preseason was disrupted by injury, Morata started the season as arguably the fourth choice striker behind Carlos Tevez, Fernando Llorente and precocious youngster Kingsley Coman. While Coman was never likely to be more than an impact sub over the course of the season, the battle with Llorente is one that – until very recently – has been a back and forth affair throughout the season, with the more experienced Llorente even earning more minutes than his younger countryman over the course of the season.
After showing the same inconsistencies over the first half of the season that plagued him at Los Blancos, it has taken until the home stretch for Morata to show the form that had so many excited about him coming into the 2013/14 season. In particular, his play in the Champions League knockout stages has caught the eye, providing four goals and two assists in six games. Especially vital were the two goals he scored against his former club (one in each leg) in the semi-final; evidently a bittersweet moment for the striker as he chose not to celebrate either goal, but one that also announced his arrival on the European stage. It was also a moment of poetic justice for football purists everywhere; nearly £200m worth of attacking talent knocked out by an academy graduate the club cast aside.
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It has been a strong 2015 that has allowed the 22 year-old to show off his full repertoire. He is both big and powerful enough to hold the ball up with his back to goal, and quick enough to get in behind almost any back four. Predictably for a Spaniard, his touch and link play is very good even at his size; both will be crucial against Barcelona, as Juventus are unlikely to have much of the ball, and at times will be forced to simply punt it up the field for Morata to try and hold up. While he has never scored many goals outside the area, his ability and anticipation when the ball is in the box allow him to poach the goals all world-class strikers need to get (as shown by the two Madrid strikes).
In other words, he’s a very complete centre forward for someone so young and relatively inexperienced at the highest level; and while at times he can be seen as a jack of all trades and master of none, his versatility is critical in this ever evolving Juventus system. That has been essential during this run to the final; it allows Max Allegri to employ all kind of tactical quirks around the striker, knowing that he is able to slot into a given style of play in the way that best suits the team. He can cope with being marooned up front by himself and having to hold up the ball for others, or dropping off into a deeper role to pick up the ball and run at defenders.
Of course, that buy-back clause could curtail his stay in Turin, particularly with Ancelotti ruthlessly removed from the picture, but is doesn’t come into effect until next summer, by which point Madrid may have been drawn elsewhere. Either way Morata’s current focus will be pin-pointed on Saturday, the biggest game of his young career. For a player coming from one of the most prestigious academies in world football, it hasn’t been a straightforward journey; given how he’s handled the challenges he’s faced so far, that shouldn’t be a problem at all.