Dani Gómez renews his contract with Real Madrid!

Dani Gómez has finally agreed terms to a new contract with Real Madrid. The player personally announced the news on social media, and whilst he stated his content with the deal both he and his younger brother received, he did not specify the length of his new contract. The youngster has found himself frozen out of the club for over six months now after talk of failed contract negotiations. He ended up playing barely any minutes after a great start to the season, not even making the Castilla match-day squad for the final eight fixtures. His first team progress was also completely cut, as he missed out on a handful of opportunities that certainly would have come his way. The only place he could manage to find refuge was with Guti’s Juvenil A, where he continued to play in the UEFA Youth League and rewarded that decision by scoring seven goals during the competition.

It looked like this scenario was unfix-able, and that Dani was sure to leave this summer. He joined up with his fellow Castilla teammates for the start of pre-season, but was one of the only players to refrain from posting on social media - and he seemed to be keeping particularly quiet. In fact, one of the only posts he did make was a farewell message to departing manager Guti, who has left his Juvenil A role to join Beşiktaş as assistant. That suggests that this good, but surprising news has come completely out of the blue.

This news is excellent, and finally puts an end to this depressing saga. However, it really has highlighted to me what a complete waste of time the last six months has been. It also doesn’t sit right with me that Real Madrid are a club willing to completely stall a young players development for such a long period of time simply because negotiations haven’t gone as they’d hoped. It may well come back to haunt them, as in that six months Dani’s performances dropped, in correlation to his minutes. He also witnessed Cristo González take his starting spot for good, becoming the first player since Mariano or Mayoral to hit double figures for Castilla - a figure that Dani was certain to hit at the start of the season.

Dani will likely remain with Castilla now for the coming season, and will be looking to quickly return to his best form. With Campuzano leaving the club to return to Espanyol, his competition is even less - but he now finds himself second choice out of two. Pre-season will no doubt shine some light on what might happen to him this year, so keep an eye out for the friendlies which begin this Sunday against Conquense. Hopefully the club can learn from this situation and refrain from shutting out anymore prestigious talents in the future. In that situation, everyone is a loser.