Over the course of a few weeks between December 2014 and January 2015, Real Madrid signed two young talents with an eye on the future of the first team's midfield. One arrived with an almost comical amount of fanfare for a 16-year-old after a media circus that saw him train very publicly with some of Europe's biggest clubs. The other was announced almost as a footnote and loaned back to his boyhood club for the remainder of the 2014-15 season.
Martin Odegaard arrived at Real Madrid as the most sought-after talent in European football; Marco Asensio was something of an unknown quantity, a few murmurs about a Mallorca youngster who looked pretty useful about all that accompanied his low-key unveiling.
Two years later, Odegaard is languishing on loan at Dutch club Heerenveen with his early reputation in danger of flatlining. Asensio, on the other hand, is on the cusp of greatness and the 2017-18 season will be key to just how far the 21-year-old can go.
Following a season on loan at Espanyol while Odegaard struggled in Real's reserves -- a campaign that earned Asensio the La Liga Breakthrough Player of the Year award -- the expectation at the Bernabeu is that the Spain international will now play a more significant role in Zinedine Zidane's first XI as Real seek to defend their domestic and European titles.
Asensio's achievements in 2016-17 were considerable. He scored on his European Super Cup, La Liga, Copa del Rey and Champions League debuts, while also adding the coup de grace in the final of Europe's elite competition nine minutes after coming off the bench. It was a fairytale end to a season that saw Asensio announce his potential in the curtain-raiser against Sevilla with a wonderful curling strike that would be complemented throughout 2016-17 with some lung-bursting individual efforts.
During Real's preseason tour of the USA, which has been largely underwhelming, Asensio has maintained his form of the tail end of last term. While Gareth Bale and Karim Benzema have showed few signs of bouncing back from injury and a loss of form respectively, Asensio has picked up exactly where he left off after shining for Spain at the Under-21 Euros in Poland.
From being nominally a squad player at the end of last season, Asensio is now a genuine threat to Bale's starting status and his versatility -- he played on the left and right of an attacking three, as a midfielder and a No. 10 in 2016-17 -- means that he will feature considerably more this campaign. Not for nothing was €80 million World Cup Golden Boot winner James Rodriguez sent packing on loan.
Asensio's stratospheric rise also partially explains Real's restraint in the summer transfer market: While Barca are robbing PSG to pay Paulo Dybala, or any one of several other candidates, Real are well set across the front line for any unforeseen event up to Aug. 31 and a long way beyond. For a fee of just €4m, Real headed off a similar emergency with the signing of Asensio, which could yet prove to be the bargain of the decade in an increasingly insane market.
There is little doubt that Barca would dearly love to have Asensio on the books to fill a soon-to-be vacant position on the left but once again the lure of Zidane proved decisive in the player's decision, despite a move to Camp Nou perhaps being the obvious choice culturally for a player raised in the Balearic Islands -- and the slightly bizarre intervention of Mallorca native and Real fan Rafa Nadal, whose uncle, Miguel Angel Nadal, split his career between Barcelona and Son Moix.
Zidane swiftly identified Asensio as a serious prospect, sending him out on loan to Espanyol while he kept a close personal eye on Odegaard. The Norwegian floundered in the reserves, with Zidane far from impressed with his young charge, but Asensio flourished in Catalunya and earned his place in the Madrid first-team squad for the 2016-17 campaign.
What remains to be seen is where Zidane takes Asensio from here. An early indication will be provided next week when Real face Manchester United in the European Super Cup. On current form, there are few arguments for the 21-year-old to be omitted from the starting lineup in Skopje, Macedonia. He has already shown that he is equal to any task laid out by his coach and in a World Cup year has even more reason to catch the eye.
It's worth a thought: if Neymar can command a €222m fee in 2017, how much will Real's jewel be worth after a potential Best Young Player award at the 2018 World Cup? Real's opponents next week have the answer to that on their bank statement.