Real Madrid Zidane wants midfielder in the first-team

Excellent pre-season performances against Paris Saint-Germain and Chelsea have earned Marco Asensio a place in the Real Madrid team for the upcoming season.

The 20-year-old spent last season at Espanyol and had been expected to be shipped out on loan again this campaign.

Instead, two weeks of training in Canada and the United States, an excellent second-half against PSG and a stunning goal against Chelsea were enough to convince Zinedine Zidane that the Majorca native deserves a chance in the first team.

In between those two matches, former Real Madrid and La Roja coach Vicente del Bosque described Asensio as the greatest talent there is in Spain.

The French coach clearly agrees, and he told Florentino Perez that he plans to use the 20-year-old in midfield and to provide a breather to the BBC trio up front.

That could leave players such as James Rodriguez on the outside looking in, and the Colombian may still leave Real Madrid before the season kicks off., although Zidane has reiterated his desire to keep the player.

Should he depart, the Premier League is the 25-year-old's most likely destination, though PSG are also a possibility.

With Asensio and Alvaro Morata likely to be the only new faces in Zidane's first team, Castilla talents such as Mariano, Marcos Llorente and Martin Odegaard may need to leave the Estadio Santiago Bernabeu to find minutes.