Latasa will have his chance

• The Castilla striker has started the Real Madrid pre-season under Ancelotti, who will take him on tour in the United States.

Jovic’s departure opens a new scenario in the competition to be Karim Benzema‘s 9th substitute. The invariable, as well as practically insignificant, presence of the Serbian and Mariano the last three seasons (despite the club’s attempts in past summers to find a way out for one of the two, now in part consummated with the goodbye of the Balkan) has course a stopper for home players, case of Mayoral, who returns to the team after having been chaining three assignments (Levante, Roma, and Getafe) in the last four years, or Latasa, Castilla striker the last two seasons. The youth squad is one of Raul’s pupils who has started the pre-season with the first team and will also go on tour in the United States. Ancelotti wants to evaluate him closely. Latasa, 21, will have her chance.

Benzema will continue to be the unquestionable starter, but after him, new alternatives open up. The window of minutes for his secondaries will be greater in a season marked by the World Cup (to which, except for surprise, the Frenchman will attend) and to which Madrid will add the requirement of two more titles that will harden the whites’ calendar. Mayoral is running as Karim’s first replacement, but the hope that Mariano will also follow Jovic’s path remains alive.

Latasa already savored in the final stretch of last season what it is like to play with the first team. In his third call for him, Ancelotti gave him the alternative in the visit to Cádiz on the penultimate day of the League, with the title already in his pocket. Benzema rested thinking about the final of the Fourteenth, Mariano started and Jovic did not even travel to La Tacita de Plata. The Italian coach took advantage of the final stretch of the game to make Latasa’s debut, who played eight minutes and had a chance in added time when he finished off a corner kick taken by Toni Kroos. His headbutt (his 1.92 height makes him a prodigious player in the air game) went over Ledesma’s goal.

The striker, like other teammates in the white subsidiary, has aroused the interest of other teams, in the case of Rayo Vallecano, but the club has stopped the departure of several Castilla strongholds this summer with a sign to maintain Raul’s block. Latasa can have an extra prize.