Dani Olmo, Luis de la Fuente’s doubts | Eurocup Germany 2024

“Incoming call, Luis de la Fuente.” Dani Olmo’s phone often rings with calls from the Spanish coach, especially when the RB Leipzig player gets injured. “Louis always wants to know how Dani is doing,” says the coaching staff. A situation that repeated itself three times last season after Olmo missed 29 games and spent 111 days in the hospital. Problem-solution for De la Fuente. “Dani will arrive at the Eurocup fresh,” they warned from staff Red coach. However, the freshness has transformed into…

“Incoming call, Luis de la Fuente.” Dani Olmo’s phone often rings with calls from the Spanish coach, especially when the RB Leipzig player gets injured. “Louis always wants to know how Dani is doing,” says the coaching staff. A situation that repeated itself three times last season after Olmo missed 29 games and spent 111 days in the hospital. Problem-solution for De la Fuente. “Dani will arrive at the Eurocup fresh,” they warned from staff Red coach. However, the freshness turned into a lack of competitive rhythm, and Dani Olmo started the Euros on the bench. But something changed against Albania: a 10th-place finish rattled the substitutes and sowed doubt in De la Fuente. And it seemed like they had an untouchable starting lineup.

“He’s a top-level player, fantastic,” praised De la Fuente to Dani Olmo after the last game against Albania. The Catalan finished his first game in the starting lineup with an assist, four shots (two on target) and an 83% success rate for his passes. He also completed three successful dribbles in three attempts and won 100% of his duels. “That’s a value vertex, but this is a team and at any moment they know how to take on their role. “Dani is talented, but he is a team player, he puts the common good before the individual,” De la Fuente insisted. The coach knows that replacing Olmo won’t cause any problems in the group – harmony in the locker room is one of his main weapons – but it will happen in his head.

“We do not rule out that Dani may join the team. He is a player who can interpret different match scenarios and can adapt to different positions on the pitch. He can play between the lines, he can go out on the flank,” the coaching staff explains. It is not new that, since staff The technical highlight is the versatility of Dani Olmo, De la Fuente’s favorite player since they met in the U-19s, the 2019 European champions. In the final against Germany, Olmo was named MVP of the match. Two years later, the Catalan captained La Rojita to a silver medal in Tokyo.

The future in Spain became the present, so when De la Fuente moved to the senior team, there was an attitude in the football city of Las Rosas that seemed unbreakable among the coaching staff: “Dani Olmo, plus 10.” Sometimes as a striker, sometimes as an outsider, and in some matches as a midfielder, Olmo has always been important to the coach. However, it so happened that the footballer, who trained in the Barça youth team, arrived at the Nations League moved. The same situation as in the Euro.

And Dani Olmo did everything he could to get to Germany on time. Two days before the end of the Bundesliga, the number 10 of the Spanish national team asked RB Leipzig to release him. The German company, which is looking for an extension of his contract (he has a 60 million clause that must be fulfilled by July 15), wanted to pamper the Catalan, who is being looked at by Barcelona, ​​Manchester City, Liverpool and Bayern Munich. Although he knows that his future is already far from Leipzig, he just wanted to forget about his physical discomfort. He was the first to arrive in Las Rozas, along with Cucurella and Zubimendi. On Wednesday 29th, they worked in the afternoon, on Thursday 30th they did a double training session and on Friday 31st they trained in the morning. During these three days he stayed in a hotel in Madrid and on July 1 he joined the entire Spanish expedition (only the Real Madrid players who had won the Champions League and Laporte were absent) to the La Roja concentration.

Specific plan

“We have drawn up a specific work plan for Dani,” the Federation says. In the first match against Croatia, Olmo started on the bench: 31 minutes. In the match against Italy, he didn’t even take the field. “It’s true that he didn’t have a great game against Croatia,” they lament from Donaueschingen. An unprecedented thing happened to number 10: he came on as a substitute for De la Fuente. “It was strange because Dani is the coach’s right eye,” says the La Roja player.

But Nico Williams and Lamin Yamal flew on wings, and Pedri looked into Pedri’s mirror. Dani Olmo was then left without a place in De la Fuente’s ideal eleven in Germany. “If I can’t prove myself on the field, I’ll have to do it in training,” warned Dani Olmo. And the effort in the preparatory classes increased. In the fight against Albania, his time had come. This time, unlike La Roja’s debut against Croatia in Berlin, they made no mistake.

Dani Olmo is asking for a place in the starting lineup for the match with Georgia. And now the problem lies with De la Fuente.

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