[0:00]Alejandro Garnacho is the perfect example of everything Cristiano Ronaldo described before leaving Manchester United. you listen from one side and they go away from another side. In the next 18 months, that same player managed to become a Manchester United starter and the most hated face the club has ever seen. Don't surprise me, but in the same way is a little bit shame. This is not a story about a player who was bad. This is a story about a player who was rewarded for the best goal of the year. It all starts in 2022. Garnacho literally forces his way into the United first team purely because he was that good. At that time, Marcus Rashford was playing the worst football of his career. 25 games, only four goals and two assists. That is why Garnacho was a true breath of fresh air. Ralph Rangnick gave him his first minutes, and the potential was seen in him from the start. Unpredictable, raw speed on the left wing, no system and no responsibility. Exactly the type of player that modern football is increasingly missing. The first problems appeared immediately when Ten Hag took over the club. He isolated Garnacho and he was right to do so. Garnacho had repeatedly arrived late to summer pre-season training. Because of that, he was left without a single minute in the friendly matches. Alejandro is a young player and he apologized for it. As soon as the lesson was learned, Ten Hag let him on the pitch. His United lived on transitions and direct play where Garnacho fit perfectly. His first goal was every teenager's dream, assisted by his idol. That is when his humbler side was visible. Garnacho asked Ronaldo to perform his celebration. Alejandro Garnacho, how good was he? We expect a lot from him. In the Premier League, Ten Hag started using him more and more as a super sub. The turning point happened just 10 days after his first goal. Garnacho enters from the bench at 1 to 1 and scores the winning goal in the 93rd minute. That was when Ten Hag realized, Garnacho is no longer just a talent, he is a match winner. He finished his first full season with only five goals. That doesn't seem impressive for an attacker, but out of those, three were in the Premier League. Against Fulham in the 93rd minute, against Leeds in the 85th minute, and against Wolves in the 94th minute. You can notice that these goals came under extreme pressure in the final minutes, deciding the matches. And then came November 2023. Against Everton at Goodison Park, the ball drops, Garnacho turns and executes a bicycle kick that is seen once in a decade. The FIFA Puskas Award for 2024. Garnacho or Rooney? Garnacho. His form did not drop immediately after that goal. He finished the season with 10 goals, which is not a bad stat when we consider United's eighth place finish. The theater of dreams gave him the greatest possible gift. The Stretford end took the sacred song Viva Ronaldo and changed it to Viva Garnacho. Just the name itself, Alejandro Garnacho, started causing excitement at the mere pronunciation. And there was the trap. This is the biggest mistakes of the players. They think they know everything and they don't learn more. That is why the comparison with Ronaldo is crucial here. It shows the difference between a real and a fake ego. Cristiano Ronaldo wins his first Ballon d'Or at Old Trafford. The ultimate peak for a football player, much more valuable than the Puskas Award. Moreover, he was the first player to win the Puskas Award immediately after the Ballon d'Or. But for Ronaldo, there is no rest. His ego pushed him to work twice as hard. On the other hand, Garnacho received only a fraction of that glory and started living on it. And that came at a cost, because a bicycle kick against Everton is not enough to secure an untouchable status. Everything came due after Ten Hag. Ruben Amorim landed at Old Trafford, bringing the system from Sporting where players must adapt. In that system, Garnacho's bicycle kick meant nothing and that was a blow to his ego. He was left without the freedom he had under Ten Hag. Without work ethic and through disobedience, Garnacho slowly began to feel the bench. He was not invisible. By nature he is incredible at finding space, but his finishing became a problem. While under Ten Hag, he could miss three chances and become man of the match from the fourth. Amorim's game was based on a small number of high quality chances, but he didn't earn the bench because of miss chances. He earned the bench because United started being defensively vulnerable with him. Statistics showed that United was receiving more attacks down his side. He became the weak point of the system. But that still hadn't ruined his career. December 2024, and the match against Plzen is much more important. Garnacho is waiting to enter the game, and Amorim gives him instructions. And Garnacho just turned around. we have to put the standards really high, uh, Because of such disrespect, he was kicked out of the team for the Manchester Derby. they have to fight for the, um, the place in the team and today we um, The story didn't stop there. Bruno Fernandez, Casemiro and Harry Maguire sat down with him and gave him a friendly piece of advice. Stop thinking only about yourself. Lower your ego. Where do you see the promise in the squad? You look at the squad now, you look at Garnacho. They don't depend only of the the talent. It's more than that. Ronaldo's words here become clearer than ever, and when the Europa League final arrived, Amorim brings him on in the 71st minute instead of Mason Mount. It was one of the most important matches in the club's modern era for United and they lost. Did he deserve to start then? If you ask his ego, yes. But in the semi-final itself, he missed a clear sitter. At the press conference after the game, Garnacho says, I played every game, and today I get 20 minutes today, I don't know. He cares more about his own individual success than he does about the team. Amorim did not cross him out of the team discreetly in the office. Instead, at a team meeting in front of the entire dressing room, he told him directly, you better pray you find a club that will sign you. Meanwhile, there were serious accusations that confidential information was leaking from the Manchester United dressing room directly to Twitter accounts by him and his brother. The goal was to sabotage their own club, but why? His brother was already telling the fans that Garnacho would take Ronaldo's number seven, but that number went to Mason Mount. Just another blow to his ego. The fans stopped saying his name, they only called him subject 49. Manchester had never had a good players, but then don't have the mind, what is Manchester United is. An erasure from club history that has practically never been seen in modern football. However much Antony was a flop, he never sabotaged the club, nor humiliated the coach in the middle of a game. Alejandro Garnacho leaving Liverpool these, sorry, leaving Manchester United this summer. At the very end of the transfer window, he manages to sign for Chelsea for 45 million. Everyone thought this would be a reset. Enzo Maresca explained how Garnacho arrived at Stanford Bridge in poor form after isolation in Manchester, which was somewhat of an excuse for his weak start at Chelsea. Maresca believed in him, even though he had competition on the left wing, the fast and explosive Jamie Gitten. Any coach would have pushed him to the forefront, but Maresca more often chose Garnacho. He gave him opportunities and time to show himself. By January 1st, 2026, when Maresca got fired due to poor results, Garnacho had played 17 games in the Premier League and scored only one goal. He didn't use the departure from Amorim's cage to prove United wrong, like Rashford did. After a short period at Aston Villa, Rashford moved to Barcelona, where under Hansi Flick, he currently has 10 goals and 13 assists. Maresca succeeded by Liam Rosenior, a coach who demands iron discipline because Chelsea had a huge problem with red cards this season. I feel he's in a good place. He, Ali's in a great place.
[6:49]What is more important, under the new coach, Garnacho barely exists. He is nailed to the bench. Rosenior explained that he is testing him this way. He left him on the bench to see if his head will drop again, or if he will start training. Things become even harder when we look at Rosenior's system. It is focused on absolute dominance in the midfield. Because of this, Chelsea now often plays with only one classic winger, and this directly affects Garnacho's minutes. Garnacho was not justifying his 45 million transfer. He became more of an insurmountable financial burden with a seven-year contract. Kobbie Mainoo makes the key difference here. Under the same coach, he had problems just like Garnacho. The system was changed, Amorim does not play with two holding midfielders, and Bruno Fernandez was in Mainoo's position. Football-wise, an impossible mission to take a starting spot. He found himself in a massive crisis with minutes. He almost went on loan. part of a career is that there's a few ups and downs and sometimes it goes in different trajectories, but I think we've seen last week what what Kobbie can bring. But everything in his career changes 180 degrees when Michael Carrick took over the club. Carrick gives every player what they need. He doesn't arrive with his rigid system, but adapts to each individual player and looks to extract the maximum from everyone. And here comes the big what if. What would have happened if Garnacho had managed to tame his ego? Maybe the transfer to Chelsea would never have even happened. Even though it is not too late for a new beginning, he is still only 21 years old. Chelsea destroyed Aston Villa, and even though they conceded a goal first, what is more important, Garnacho used his start. He finished the game with a high rating and one assist. And even if he manages to get his career back on track, one thing remains clear. With his ego, he tarnished his own reputation. He got a kicking out of the club that gave him his first minutes. His first career goal came with an assist from his idol, an idol whom he completely misunderstood. Ronaldo never said Garnacho's name, but he didn't have to, because everything Ronaldo ever told young players describes exactly what happened to Garnacho. Garnacho became the greatest proof that Ronaldo was right.
