Carlo Ancelotti Has Unenviable Dilemma over Development of Jese at Real Madrid
"You can't do this to me; I've been warming up for 40 minutes."
Those were supposedly the words of Jese to Real Madrid assistant coach Fernando Hierro, per Dermot Corrigan of ESPN FC, as manager Carlo Ancelotti prepared to send the forward onto the pitch with less than 30 seconds of added time remaining in Los Blancos' recent clash with Elche.
After playing all of four minutes against Deportivo La Coruna a week earlier, the Spaniard didn't hide his frustration. His anger was palpable.
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The less-than-a-minute showing was his 12th substitute appearance of the season without a single start.
Villarreal's visit to the Bernabeu this past Sunday saw that number tick over to 13.
Inevitably, speculation now surrounds his future in the capital.
For Real Madrid, the conundrum is a familiar one: how to foster the development of a young talent while concurrently satisfying the club's marquee stars.
And it's an issue on almost every line for Los Blancos. For Jese's equivalent at the back, see Nacho. In midfield, see Asier Illarramendi.
When Luka Modric and James Rodriguez return, Lucas Silva will likely be in the same situation.
Yet it's up front where the dilemma is at its most difficult—where it borders on a no-win situation for the man in the hot seat, Ancelotti.
In Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema, the Italian has perhaps three of the best 10 forwards on the planet.
In Jese he has an "insane talent," as Ancelotti once told the Corriere dello Sport (h/t Inside Spanish Football); a 22-year-old the club's fans crave to be the next Emilio Butragueno or Raul but who still doesn't command a starting place ahead of the aforementioned trio.
It leaves Ancelotti with the most difficult of juggling acts, one fraught with dangers and waiting criticism. One where he can lose either way.
On Monday, renowned journalist Graham Hunter was critical of Ancelotti's treatment of Jese while speaking on Sky Sports' Revista de la Liga program (h/t Sky Sports):
"Ancelotti's brilliance across his career, not just at Madrid, is taking players and making them give more than maybe they had been giving for somebody else.
He had that from Jese last season and this season after a year's recuperation Jese arrives back and Ancelotti says this is the guy that could have won us the league last year.
He comes on and wins the game against Sevilla but Ancelotti goes public and says Bale, Ronaldo and Benzema always start. Jese thinks what about me.
For two games in a row he has him warming up and coming on in the 86th minute against Deportivo and the 90th against Elche. Jese as a young frustrated guy is losing his temper.
He goes out on his birthday, which was a mistake, and then what happens. The one golden moment came that last season he would have notched but his head's not right. He's been put off, he's raging and he misses it and Real don't win.
I find it a mistake how Ancelotti's treating the player.
"
Hunter certainly has a point: Ancelotti could have handled the situation differently with regard to the games against Deportivo and Elche.
But there's also a larger issue at play here. Awarding playing time, particularly starts, to Jese is far from straightforward for Ancelotti. Though there's a desire to fast-track the forward's development at the Bernabeu, it needs to be weighed against other demands—perhaps frustratingly so.
They're demands not necessarily unique to Real Madrid, but ones that do feel more prevalent in the Spanish capital than they do in many other locations.
Of course, it all centres on star power, but not the amount of stars the club has; rather, the amount of power the stars have over the club and its manager.
Consider, just for a second, the storm that engulfed Luis Enrique at Barcelona when he benched Lionel Messi and Neymar for the club's visit to Real Sociedad. It could be seen as a power play, as mere squad rotation or as friction between player and coach.
Bleacher Report's Guillem Balague addressed that dynamic not long after that damaging night at the Anoeta:
"When he arrived, Luis Enrique announced at his first press conference that he, the coach, was the leader and he has never had any reservations about displaying the idea that Messi is just another player, and no player is bigger than the team.
And guess what? He's wrong.
"
It's unlikely Enrique will leave out his biggest name—or names—again. His job depends on it. He's quickly learned that it is the stars who hold the power, that their interests must be prioritised.
Whether that's right or wrong, that's what it is.
And the same goes for Ancelotti at Real Madrid.
It's one of the reasons why, as Hunter noted, that Ancelotti remarked on the priority given to Ronaldo, Bale and Benzema. The Italian is a renowned diplomat; his ability to foster internal harmony has always been a cornerstone of his management.
He knows that at Real Madrid, under president Florentino Perez, staying onside with the club's marquee names is essentially task No. 1. Everything else comes after that.
Interestingly, Jese commented on Ancelotti's ability to oversee the sort of group that exists at the Bernabeu in an interview with FIFA in December.
"Everyone knows he's a great coach, but I'd highlight his human qualities: he knows how to handle groups, which is the toughest part of the job, particularly at Real Madrid, where there are so many great players and egos," the Spaniard remarked.
"And he does it with aplomb."
Three months on, we're seeing possibly the first small signs of discontent within the group from that same individual, from a precocious homegrown forward—perhaps the most fan-cherished type of player in the game. Think about it: Everyone loves a goalscorer who's one of their club's own, a product of the institution.
But what's Ancelotti to do? Rotate his front three at various junctures and risk disturbing the peace with Ronaldo and Co.? Sit some of Perez's €200-plus million attack on the bench?
Where's that going to get him?
Likely where Enrique found himself a couple of months ago.
To develop, Jese needs game time. Lots of it, in fact. But the issue is that he needs it at the expense of others whose needs outweigh his own. And Ancelotti, as a diplomat, knows it.
As such, it's an unenviable dilemma: If the Italian sacrifices the playing time of his biggest stars to accommodate Jese, he loses; if he sacrifices Jese's playing time to accommodate his biggest stars, he loses.
Go one way, and he upsets the harmony and the squad's pecking order; go the other, and he stagnates the development of a homegrown talent and a crowd favourite.
It's a conundrum that's existed at Real Madrid before, and one likely to exist again.
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