The situation
Mendy’s season looks set to be tough. Or at least, more than the previous one . In the 2021-2022 campaign, he established himself as the undisputed left back of the team: his great performance in defense and his good handling of the ball in small spaces pleased Ancelotti a lot. However, the arrival of Rüdiger for 2022-2023 seems to have changed the plans of the Italian coach, who sees in Mendy one more player on the rotation. To make matters worse, he had to withdraw early from training this Monday due to his recurring problems in the perineum just when he was aiming for eleven against America… The Frenchman, talisman of Real Madrid (the team has only suffered two defeats in his 63 league games as a starter), played a total of 34 games last season (including the League, Champions League and Copa del Rey), in which he played 2,808 minutes . Some headline numbers, especially considering that various ailments and muscle injuries left him out in 14 games, 1,260 ‘that went to limbo. It is true that last summer Madrid already incorporated Alaba, a footballer who could perform perfectly as ‘3’ (in fact, the Austrian used to act in that position at Bayern Munich, where he established himself as one of the best left sides of the world).But Ancelotti decided to place the one from Vienna as central, given the foreseeable weakness that the white team would have in that area of the field after the departures of Ramos and Varane (with Nacho and Vallejo as substitutes, in addition to a Militao with whom Alaba mixed perfectly ).
The details
This left the position free for Mendy, who, once he beat Marcelo in the fight for ownership, cleared up any type of debate around him thanks to his solvent performances. Now, with the signing of Rüdiger, the scenario has changed. The German, landed free from Chelsea, arrived, presumably, to be Militao’s dance partner in defense and move Alaba to the side . However, the surprise came when in the first pre-season friendly (in Las Vegas against Barcelona), Carletto chose not to touch the couple that worked so well last year and sent Rüdiger to the left flank (a great performance took place) , leaving the second part for that of Meulan-en-Yvelines .The substitution is insignificant, since it was a preseason game. The worrying thing for the former Lyon player is that Ancelotti has two more players in mind to compete with him for a place in the eleven. If two weeks ago his ‘rival’ was Alaba, now Rüdiger enters the equation.