Been away for a few days,so,apologies if already posted...
Isco: "I will decide my future when the tournament is over"
Isco is the man of the moment in Spanish football. Targetted by Manchester City and Real Madrid, he will decide within the next seven days where he will play next season.
In Dann Akkadia, a top of the range hotel on the Herzliya beach, north of Tel Aviv, where Spain’s under-21 squad are staying, no-one is saying anything about the future of one of the main transfer targets of the summer. Isco calmly walks down to the dining room at midday. He is not disconnected from reality, but nor is he overawed by it.
He has read that Zinedine Zidane has asked Florentino Pérez to sign him for Real Madrid immediately. The Málaga player, who during the day congratulated his former team-mate Joaquín on his move to Fiorentina, transmits an air of absolute tranquility. He has kept the same routine throughout the tournament and has made sure he has not altered the ecosystem of the team, that is two games away from reaffirming its status as the best under-21 side in Europe.
“I know nothing about my future and if I did I wouldn’t share it with you lot”, he joked with AS reporters pestering him on the subject.
“I’m going to decide after the European Championships,” he declared.
Isco, who won the 2012 Golden Boy award, will travel back to Madrid after the tournament with the squad for one night before heading to Ibiza for his holidays. In the Spanish capital, in theory, he will meet with his father, who holds all the weight in negotiations for his son, after he broke his contract with the IMG agency.
Isco has been sharing a room during the tournament with Real Madrid forward Alvaro Morata, who remarks: ("I’m not surprised by what he can do, he has been doing it since he was in the under-17s”. However, the midfielder has been ambiguous about his desire to join Morata at the Bernabéu.
“I’m proud that Madrid are interested in me, but I want to play,” he said in May.
Since then, negotiations with Manchester City appeared to be further advanced. Jesús Martínez, Manuel Pellegrini’s agent, negotiated in the player’s name with City. However, on 22 May the panorama changed, when Isco’s father plus his lawyer, Rafael Comino, met in the Bernabéu with Madrid chief executive José Ángel Sánchez and Málaga director general Vicente Casado. Madrid appeared to have the advantage.
Isco does not seem at all tense by the situation, and is more relaxed than his team-mate Thiago Alcántara, whose future is also unclear.
City. The operation may have taken another twist on Friday afternoon, when Manuel Pellegrini was confirmed as Manchester City coach. The Chilean told Isco before he left Málaga: “You will always play for me”. City will go for Isco again,. But they will have to get their chequebooks out again. They have already spent almost 60 million euros signing Fernandinho and Jesus Navas. However, City sources believe that the transfer has frozen because Madrid are almost certain to swoop.
Málaga are seeking to profit from this fight between City and Madrid and increased his buy-out clause from 21 to 35 million euros last January as part of a new contract.
What seems inevitable is that negotiations are going to advance almost from Wedneday, when Isco lands in Madrid, if Spain reach the final. His aim is that, by the time he starts his holidays in Ibiza, he will know where his future lies.