"He is a machine. It's impressive how much he has advanced for his age". One year ago, after the match against Bayern Munich, Eintracht Frankfurt coach, Niko Kovac, was full of praise for Jesús Vallejo, a player loaned by Real Madrid. That match was the prelude to a complete and remarkable season signed by the Aragonese center-back, which was only overshadowed by an untimely injury, but revealed that the Chamartín team had made the right decision in recruiting this young and promising center-back formed in the Real Zaragoza youth academy.
After his return to the Spanish capital, it was expected that the player would occupy the place of the Portuguese Pepe and gradually accumulate minutes. Far from reality. After two months of competition, the center-back has not yet debuted with the white shirt. In fact, the U21 international and third goalkeeper Luca Zidane are currently the only two unused players in the first team.
Predictably, tonight, in the match that will pit the Whites against Fuenlabrada in the first leg of the Copa del Rey round of 16, Vallejo will encounter the first opportunity to wear the white jersey. It will be a tricky match, as it is against a Second B division rival, and both he and the rest of the young players (Borja Mayoral, Marcos Llorente, or Dani Ceballos) are obliged to assume responsibility and prevent another Alcorconazo.
It is clear, therefore, that in a match like this, the Zaragoza-born player has a lot to lose, since a discreet performance would practically bury his chances of accumulating more minutes. However, as things stand right now, only through opportunities as poisoned as these can he show Zinedine Zidane that he is fully capable of competing at the highest level and that all those compliments he received in the Bundesliga are well deserved.