Real Betis V Real Madrid - Laliga Ea Sports
Real Betis V Real Madrid - Laliga Ea Sports | Europa Press Sports/GettyImages
Former Real Madrid player Fran Garcia talked about how it was an absolute privilege for him to play for Real Madrid during his career. Garcia recently left the club to join Real Betis and has been performing quite well for them. He has started most games for the team this season and has even got a surprising late call-up to the Spain national team squad after Alex Grimaldo got injured.
In the first week of the international break, Garcia was recently asked about his time at Real Madrid and how he felt it went, to which he only said good things. "I fulfilled my childhood dream at Real Madrid. I wanted to enjoy it and compete. I could not be happier," said Garcia, while talking to El Larguero.
For those who did watch most of Real Madrid's matches in the last three years, they know that Garcia was not always the first name on the team sheet. In his first season, he started a few games before being benched by Ferland Mendy when he came back from injury. After that, he was always in and out of the lineup and was never able to call the left-back position his own during his time at the club.
Fran Garcia never complained about anything at Real Madrid
Last season, Garcia was playing second fiddle to Alvaro Carreras for the majority of the campaign. To be fair, he even started a bunch of games over him towards the last few games of the season. However, fans probably would not have called him an out-and-out starter for the club.
Despite all of this, he shows his love for Real Madrid in every chance he gets. He always says nice things about the club, and even the fact that he says that he could not be happier with his time at the club shows that he truly was a Real Madrid fan through and through.
Many players in his position would have said that they obviously would have wanted to play more. Garcia would have also wanted to play more, but the fact that he was happy with what he got and that he was able to be in that position in the first place was a dream come true for him.
This is why fans should never talk badly of him, because he was always doing his job right, he always worked really hard, and he never complained about his minutes.
Hopefully, his time with Betis is even better, and he is able to play more and more games for the national team too.
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Alvaro Carreras is watching his former Real Madrid backup jump ahead of him
Elche Cf V Real Madrid Cf - Laliga Ea Sports
Elche Cf V Real Madrid Cf - Laliga Ea Sports | Europa Press Sports/GettyImages
Former Real Madrid player Fran Garcia has been called up by Spain manager Luis De La Fuente to join the squad for the remainder of the international break. This has happened midway through the break because of Alex Grimaldo's injury, which leaves the manager with few options at the left-back position.
Garcia, who has not received many call-ups for Spain in his career, is hopefully going to be able to play some minutes for his country. Garcia only played two games for Spain in 2023, and that was the starting point of his career at Real Madrid. Since then, he has not played a single minute, and now all of that is going to change. This is something that Alvaro Carreras is not going to take very lightly.
This Spain decision will sting Alvaro Carreras a lot
The fact that his backup option has left the club that he plays for and managed to get a call-up to Spain before him, is going to leave some stinging pain for the former Benfica fullback. Carreras has had a couple of really good performances for Real Madrid this season, and even though he had one really bad game against Real Sociedad, he has generally looked good on that side.
Obviously, Carreras has not played nearly as much football as he would have liked because of the signing of Cucurella from Chelsea this summer, but in the minutes he has played, he has looked good and motivated to make an impact.
With Garcia being called up when Carreras was fully fit and relatively in good form, it will be a really tough pill to swallow for the player.
He was not able to get a call-up to Spain when he was a starting left back for Real Madrid last season. Now, the fact that his former backup has got to that point before him could do two things to him: It could demotivate him and make him not really care about his football, or it could act as a healthy chip on the shoulder to keep working and eventually get to the national team soon rather than later.
It remains to be seen which of the outcomes Carreras goes for, but ultimately, it is really good news for Garcia, who has looked quite good for Real Betis this season. Hopefully, he is able to get some minutes for Spain in these next two games.