Few players are as popular with Real Madrid supporters as midfielder Isco and after Saturday’s display Zinedine Zidane has joined the fan club.
“He was decisive today; we won the game because of him,” said the Real Madrid coach after seeing his team come back twice to win 3-2 at Sporting Gijon.
Now Isco looks set to start against Bayern Munich today in the second leg of the Champions League quarter-final despite the fact he has played only 77 minutes of football in the elite competition this season.
Real defend a 2-1 lead from the first leg in Germany.
Zidane’s insistence that Gareth Bale, Karim Benzema and Cristiano Ronaldo must all start for Madrid in Europe, limits him to three midfield positions.
That freezes out Isco who has not been able to dislodge Casemiro,
Luka Modric and Toni Kroos from their starting berths.
Today will be different, in part because of public pressure to finally give Isco a start, and partly because Bale is carrying a calf injury and is not 100 per cent fit.
It’s the perfect excuse for Zidane, who could be forgiven for feeling a certain amount of pressure to pick the expensive front three at Isco’s cost.
Visiting coach Carlo Ancelotti knows all about the feeling, as Madrid coach, that certain players must be picked ahead of others.
In his latest book entitled “Calm Leadership” he wrote that after substituting Bale in a game against Valencia in 2015 when he was Madrid coach he was called to the president’s office for a meeting.
There, he was told that Bale should be playing through the middle, not in the wide position Ancelotti was using him.
Ancelotti was sacked at the end of that season despite having delivered the Champions League the previous year.
Former Real Madrid midfielder Xabi Alonso also returns to his former club today.
Another face familiar to Real Madrid supporters will be one they will be less pleased to see - that of Robert Lewandowski.
He scored four goals in a 4-1 Borussia Dortmund win over Real in 2013 at Signal Iduna Park.
Madrid won the second leg 2-0 but the German side went through to the final.
Things should be easier for Real Madrid today.
Spanish sports paper Marca turned to recent statistics in its edition yesterday morning to demonstrate how they are clear favourites.
In the last 37 Madrid games at home in the Champions League only two results would eliminate them this week were they to be repeated.
Real Madrid lost 2-0 to Barcelona at home in 2011 and 3-4 against Schalke in the 2014-15 season.
Bayern Munich have lost eight of their 11 visits to the stadium and only once did they manage a scoreline that would see them through on Tuesday - a 2-4 win in the 1999-00 campaign.