“Incoming call, Luis de la Fuente.” It is common for Dani Olmo’s phone to ring with a call from the Spanish national team coach, especially when the RB Leipzig player is injured. “Luis always wants to know how Dani is,” the coaching staff said. A situation that was repeated up to three times last season after Olmo missed 29 games and spent 111 days in the infirmary. A problem-solution for De la Fuente. “Dani will arrive fresh to the Euros,” they warned from the coaching staff. staff coach of La Roja. However, freshness turned into a lack of competitive rhythm and Dani Olmo started the Euro on the bench. But something changed against Albania: the number 10 stirred up the substitutes and sowed doubt in De la Fuente. And that was despite the fact that he seemed to have an untouchable starting eleven.
“He is a top-level footballer, fantastic,” De la Fuente praised Dani Olmo after the last game against Albania. The Catalan closed his first game as a starter with an assist, four shots (two on goal) and 83% of the successful passes. Furthermore, he completed three successful dribbles in three attempts and won 100% of duels. “It is value top“But this is a team and at every given moment they know how to assume their role. Dani is talented, but he is a team player, he emphasizes the general good before the individual,” insisted De la Fuente. The coach knows that Olmo’s substitution would not cause him any problems in the group – the harmony of the dressing room is one of his greatest weapons – but it would in his own head.
“We do not rule out Dani being able to join the team. He is a player who knows how to interpret different match scenarios and can adapt to different positions on the field. He knows how to play between the lines, he can go to the wing,” the coaching staff explains. It is not new that from the staff The coach highlights the versatility of Dani Olmo, a favourite player of De la Fuente since they met in the U-19, European champion in 2019. In that final against Germany, Olmo took the MVP of the match. Two years later, the Catalan led La Rojita to the silver medal in Tokyo.
The future was becoming the present in Spain, so when De la Fuente made the jump to the senior team, at the Ciudad del Fútbol in Las Rozas there was a premise that seemed indestructible in the coaching staff: “Dani Olmo, plus 10”. Sometimes as a winger, sometimes as a midfielder, in some duels also as an attacking midfielder, Olmo was always important for the coach. However, it happened that the footballer trained in the Barça youth academy arrived at the Nations League in a weakened state. The same situation as in the Euros.
And Dani Olmo pushed hard to reach Germany on time. Two days before the Bundesliga ended, Spain’s number 10 asked to be released by RB Leipzig. The German entity, which is looking for him to renew his contract – he has a clause of 60 million to be exercised before July 15 – wanted to pamper the Catalan, who is in the sights of Barcelona, Manchester City, Liverpool and Bayern Munich. He, even though he understands that his future is already far from Leipzig, just wanted to forget about his physical discomfort. He was the first to arrive in Las Rozas, along with Cucurella and Zubimendi. On Wednesday the 29th they worked in the afternoon, on Thursday the 30th they did a double session, while on Friday the 31st they exercised in the morning. During those three days he stayed in a hotel in Madrid and on July 1 he joined the entire Spanish expedition (only the Real Madrid players, who had won the Champions League, and Laporte were missing) to the La Roja concentration.
Specific plan
“We made a specific training plan for Dani,” they say in the Federation. In the first match against Croatia, Olmo started on the bench: 31 minutes. Against Italy, he did not even come on the field. “It is true that he did not have a great game against Croatia,” they lament in Donaueschingen. It was something unprecedented for the number 10: he was a substitute under De la Fuente. “It was strange, because Dani is the boss’s favourite,” says one player from La Roja.
But Nico Williams and Lamine Yamal were flying down the wings, while Pedri looked in Pedri’s mirror. Dani Olmo was then left without a place in De la Fuente’s ideal eleven in Germany. “If I can’t show myself on the pitch, I’ll have to do it in training,” warned Dani Olmo. And he stepped up his efforts in the preparation sessions. Against Albania, his moment had come. This time, unlike in La Roja’s debut against Croatia in Berlin, he did not waste it.
Dani Olmo asks for his place in the starting eleven against Georgia. And now the problem lies with De la Fuente.
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