The scrutiny on Real Madrid had greatly intensified when they decided at the end of last season not to renew Sergio Ramos’ contract and just allowed their stalwart, long-standing skipper and monstrous lynchpin defender to just leave without any ruffles. The scrutiny continues even this season although under a different sky over at the Parc des Princes with the team’s current defensive issues being under the microscope. Every time the lapses in defense occur, the conversations would invariably return to Sergio Ramos and the reasons why the Los Blancos club did not seem to bother to do more to keep him.
Now, with the forced continuance, and resultant deeper analysis, of his current situation, the Los Blancos seemingly cold decision to not renew their long-time captain seems to be making more sense finally.
From day one of his signing for PSG, Ramos has still yet to make a debut appearance, nor even a cameo, and reports ultimately began circulating about the uncertainty that the French side has regarding the long time his recovery is taking and if he would be able to regain full fitness again. Regardless of the accuracy of the reports, and even though he has finally begun training with his Parisian teammates, it now appears the odd decision to let him leave the San Bernabeu was not just down to a breakdown in the relationship with Florentino Perez and the board, as had been initially reported in the media.
This is in addition to the glaring fact that since receiving surgery at the beginning of the year, Ramos only participated in a handful of matches for Real Madrid and did not feature in any important games. Noticeably also, he was dropped from the Spanish national team for the Euros, which diverted much of the ensuing criticism to the Spain national coach Luis Enrique for this decision and many understandably pinned it on the coach’s anti-Real Madrid sentiments due to having been a former Barcelona player.
However, Ramos had been a vital cog and lynchpin in Luis Enrique’s squad and was even called up to the national team months prior to the Euros when he had just started playing again for Real Madrid after recovering from his surgery. Unfortunately, injury overtook him again during that international window and which he never fully recovered from so far.
It has been of course very disturbing to the PSG hierarchy that he has yet to make even a single appearance on the pitch for PSG despite barely playing in the latter stages of last season in the LaLiga and not being involved in any international competitions has raised smoke signals that there is something that both Real Madrid and the Spanish national team possibly knew about regarding the severity of his injury, and which was kept under cover.
At this juncture, regardless of whether it is possible for him to regain his old form or not, it now looks like Ramos was the actual person responsible for losing his situation with Los Blancos, despite there probably being some truth in the allegations that Florentino Perez was annoyed with him and his agent as earlier reports had conveniently indicated. It is also popular knowledge that Florentino was fed up with some of Ramos’ self-indulgent ways and theatrics and also immensely disliked having to deal with his agent.
Despite the issues, the club still made him an offer and he waited too long to accept it; leaving an unpleasant sensation that he only accepted it out of desperation because no other team would offer him a better deal. Especially after Real Madrid had already signed David Alaba from Bayern Munich.