Remember my first article about the Cantera, I explained why many Canteranos left Real Madrid, today I am going to talk about my favorite Esteban Granero (Mata is my favorite too) and why Real Madrid should sign him back.

Esteban Granero Molina also known as Mr. Versatile umm...well he is not really known as Mr. Versatile he's know as El Pirata (The Pirate), but he is versatile nonetheless, he can play in the center of the midfield as well as on both the wings.

Granero might not have the stats (goals and assists) to show for how good he plays, but he is truly exceptional. Granero is a highly mobile player who has good vision, a high work rate, and is a hard tackler (not a very accurate one but goes in hard nonetheless) and also has a good shot from distance.

He is one part enforcer and one part playmaker, what Ruben De La Red was for Real Madrid in the 10 games he played and what was missed by Real at the end of the season (come on, delivering long hopeful balls for Higuain and Raul to chase is not called "passing").

When Granero was loaned to Getafe in the 2007-08 season, he and Ruben De La Red took Getafe to the UEFA Cup quarterfinals, and at the start of the 2008-09 season, he was sold to Getafe with an option to re-buy him.

What makes me upset is that Ramon Calderon kept and signed players like Gago and Drenthe but sold a player like Granero, who is clearly better than both of them.

As Granero is in Getafe, I could only watch him play two matches this season, one against Barcelona and the other against his former club Real Madrid.

Match against Barcelona:

Granero did not start the match and in the first half Barcelona were dominating Getafe to such an extent that the ball stayed in the Getafe half. At the start of second half Granero was introduced on the right wing, he was winning the balls from Barcelona and started all the attacks for Getafe, they came close but couldn't score and the match ended 1-0 in the favour of Barcelona. Impressive stuff from Granero.

Match against Real Madrid:

Granero started the match against Real Madrid on the right wing and assisted Soldado to put Getafe 1-0 up, Granero was becoming too hard to stop for Real Madrid and drew two yellow cards from Rafael Van der Vaart and Royston Drenthe. Granero was the pivot of both of the counter attacks, one in which Pepe got the red card and the other in which Getafe scored their second, however Real Madrid did manage to win with Higuain's late goal, the scoreline 3-2.

Granero could have played for the Spanish National team in the Confedarations Cup but some rules had bound him as he was playing with the Spanish U-21 squad in the European Championship.

I still believe that instead of going for Xabi Alonso, Real Madrid should buy back Granero, a similar type of player but way cheaper and of our own academy, plus he has something more to offer than Xabi, which is serving as a back-up for the wingers

Granero is still in his development phase and a good manager like Pellegrini and world class players like Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo in the team can do him a world of good.

Florentino Perez wants the best of the Cantera, best of foreign players, and best of Spanish players in his team. In my opinion bringing Granero—a future Spanish international—would help him kill two birds with one stone.

You're currently logged into Facebook

Do you want to share your Bleacher Report activity on Facebook?