Real Madrid Wants Ricardo Rodríguez?

Notorious troll and master of incorrect transfer predictions, Francois Gallardo, featured on the popular(?) program El Chringuito yesterday to spew more of his usual transfer gibberish involving Real Madrid. Among his babble was the name Ricardo Rodriguez, Wolfsburg's star left back and someone that many would like to see donning the colors of Real Madrid. As usual, Gallardo naturally said the club is interested in him and that they want to make him theirs.

Why this makes sense

Rodriguez is arguably the Bundesliga's second best left back (behind Bayern Munich's David Alaba) and is already on the shortlist for one of the world's best given his domestic and international track record. He fits the Madrid profile of being an attacking defender and shares many qualities with incoming right back Danilo including height, physical prowess, excellent crossing and a pretty strong defensive game. He's more realistic of an option than Alaba (who isn't realistic at all) and is far better than some of the other alternatives mentioned (Jetro Willems, Baba Rahman, etc.). In short, he's really, really good and he's young so the sky's the limit.

Why this doesn't make sense

Francois Gallardo. Simple as that. Also, Wolfsburg is no longer a selling club but is rather one bankrolled by Volkswagen and one which is pushing for Champions League success with some of the recent moves they made. Rodriguez has a 25-30m clause in his contract which kicks in next summer, along with an extension which he just recently signed due to his desire to stay with the club, that's true; but don't be surprised if they try to restructure his deal to bump that clause up before Europe's major clubs come rushing for his services. Him coming also wouldn't make much sense in terms of playing time as he'd be giving up a lot of it.

At the end of the day, it's probably true that the club is looking at him as I'm sure they're looking at any number of extremely talented players. But, just because Gallardo is going on and on about it doesn't make it any more realistic of a transfer than had my cat brought it up. All in all, file this rumor in the "quite unlikely" category. As you were.