Opinion Full-back doesn't deserve to be scapegoat

Don't be so quick to throw Danilo under the bus. Don't place blame where it is convenient and easy. The cup exit shouldn't rest solely on his shoulders. He didn't play his worst game, far from it. But he is cursed and bad luck follows him everywhere. Football, and life, can be like that sometimes.

Zidane gave Danilo all of the right wing for himself. And there is nothing that we can reproach him for. Really. You can't say he didnt' try. He tried on so many occasions that they even fouled him five times. Others in his position would have hid and avoided accountability. He put himself on the line, and once again got burnt.

It is true that, sometimes, Danilo does his own thing. The defense was unfortunate and the versatile Danilo was there helping out, after playing in a lot of different positions. He has potential. And he proved that in the opponent's half of the pitch, he can create danger. Better for him to be there than in his own half, or at the Bernabeu. But that's another story and one for another day.

Of course, Danilo was the one to score the own-goal against Celta, but what can you do? He had just come off a game where he had scored an own-goal against Sevilla, but this one was bad luck. He continued on with the play and didn't give up on it, but it bounced off his leg. Goal. It wasn' this mistake but Nacho's. It wasn't his fault that Benzema is stilll lost on the moon, that Casemiro isn't a natural centre-back, or that Zidane takes forever to make any substitutions.

What also isn't fair is that people ask him to magically turn into Modric or Marcelo at Balaidos. And the two of them at the same time. Next they'll be blaming him for the team's injury crisis.

Danilo will be a name that'll pop up in conversation at the bar or at university, but Madrid's treble dreams didn't die with him alone. Yes, it is true that he hasn't shown anything yet, nobody denies that. He's a footballer without any confidence, and confidence is everything in this sport. But he showed up. To blame him is easy. He wasn't the one to lose the ball and look around helplessly without trying to do anything to stop it.