- 2 days ago
For years he was ridiculed, the butt of jokes and conspiracies about money laundering, memed relentlessly for his poor performance. But look closer at the career of Álvaro Morata, you'll find a resilient, determined, top quality striker who has had a career at both international and club level that most players would die for. From trophies to crucial goals, hate to redemption, this is the story of Alvaro Morata. Respect The Name.
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00:00Over 200 career goals, two Champions League medals,
00:05captain of Spain, and yet people still question him.
00:09That's the paradox of Alvaro Morata.
00:12Because when you first imagine him when I say his name,
00:15it's probably not lifting a trophy or celebrating a huge goal.
00:18It's him with his head in his hands after missing another sitter,
00:22cutting a frustrated figure on the bench somewhere,
00:25or in the midst of yet another transfer to a top club that doesn't quite make sense.
00:29For years, Morata has been the internet's favourite striker to laugh at.
00:33But here's the thing.
00:34Behind the memes is a player who has scored in the biggest European games,
00:38World Cup knockouts, and European championships.
00:41He's played for Real Madrid, Juventus, Chelsea, Atletico Madrid, Juventus again.
00:45Clubs who don't really gamble big money on passengers.
00:48If Morata was as bad as the jokes suggest, he'd never have lasted at the top level.
00:53So how did this guy, a striker trusted by Zidane, Allegri, Simeone, and Luis Enrique,
00:58become football's punchline?
01:00And why is the truth about his career a lot harder to dismiss than a meme?
01:04This is episode 3 of Respect the Name with Alvaro Morata.
01:08A pelicueta, ballon al área, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata,
01:12Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata,
01:12Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata, Morata,
01:18To understand the Spaniard, you have to start at the beginning, a kid from Madrid rising
01:25through the ranks of Real's academy, scoring for fun in the youth teams. By 2010, Mourinho
01:30gave him his debut for the first team at just 18 years old. In the coming years, as
01:35Benzema, Bale and Ronaldo formed one of the deadliest trios of all time, Morata, as you'd
01:40expect, found minutes hard to come by, but he had this knack about him. The late runs
01:45into the box, the perfect header, the ability to score and assist in big moments. In 2012-2013,
01:51he scored against Levante and Raya Vallecano, games that actually mattered in the title
01:56race. He also assisted Karim Benzema in a classic home victory. He wasn't the star, but he was
02:02the kid who could pop up when Madrid needed depth. The culmination of this breakthrough
02:06was the 2014 Champions League campaign, which ended in success, but ultimately saw a desire
02:11for more minutes to be the star man. That summer, Juventus said, we'll take him.
02:1620 million for a backup striker, that's not spare change, but it was a signal that Morata's
02:22potential was definitely something to buy into.
02:44His two years in Turin were a real coming-of-age story, and it's the version of him that I think
02:49people forget, because although there were moments of poor form, self-doubt, and the sort of mental
02:53obstacles that would pop up over the next few years, there were also more and more signs that
02:58he was on his way to the very top, set to be a big star on the big footballing stages. Okay,
03:04he wasn't a 30-goal-a-season poacher, but he was the link man, the runner, the striker who helped
03:09Dybala and Tevez score regularly, and who stretched defences so Paul Pogba could shine. Of course,
03:15in sticking with his true clutch self, there were some memorable goal-scoring moments of his own,
03:19not at least during his first season, when Juventus went all the way to the Champions League
03:24final. And who scored in both legs of the semi-final against Real Madrid? Alvaro Morata,
03:29of course. The irony was brutal. The academy kid, who couldn't quite break through,
03:33ended up knocking Madrid out of Europe. And that, in essence, has always been the paradox of Morata,
03:39judged negatively on goals, but valuable for everything else. Throughout his first stint in Italy,
03:43he seemed to be carving out this niche, showcasing what he was best at while scoring just enough
03:49to keep most questions at bay. But that's as normal, let's say, as his career would get for a
03:55while. The summer of 2016 was a real turning point for Morata. He got his dream return to Real Madrid,
04:01to his hometown. He wasn't the kid making cameos anymore, he was a starting player. But he came home
04:07to the same situation, to a house that hadn't really changed. Cristiano Ronaldo, Gareth Bale,
04:13and Karen Benzema were still there. He obviously backed himself to earn more minutes this time
04:17around, and he got them, and he delivered when he got given the chance. In La Liga,
04:22he scored 15 goals, his best ever league tally. He was the definition of an impact player. Think of
04:28that late winner against Sporting Club in the Champions League group stage, or the hat-trick
04:32against Leganes, when Madrid needed to rest and rotate. Morata wasn't just filling in,
04:37he was producing, at every opportunity. But here's the kicker. Even with his goals,
04:42even with his numbers, Morata was still behind Benzema on the pecking order. Zidane trusted his
04:47fellow Frenchmen to glue the attack together, and Morata was left playing the role of super sub.
04:51By the end of that season, despite lifting both La Liga and the Champions League,
04:54it was clear Morata wasn't going to get the keys to Madrid's attack, and maybe his return
04:59was even part of a bigger plan for the club, who knew that for €30m, they were getting a very
05:04good asset with incredible sell-on value. Now, whether that's true or not may never ever be
05:09known, but one year after moving, they did cash in on him, big time, selling him to Chelsea for
05:14around £60m. That's more than double what they paid to resign him from Juventus. From that moment
05:19on, Morata's career move stopped being seen as a footballing decision and started being branding
05:24as a money-laundering scheme. Juventus, Madrid, Chelsea, Atleti, every time he switched shirts,
05:30the jokes followed. Not about his finishing, but about how clubs were supposedly using him
05:35as a financial pawn. It became a conspiracy theory at its finest. Morata, the striker so good,
05:42he fooled Europe's elite into paying top dollar for him again and again. The irony? He was actually
05:48playing some pretty good football in those years, but his legacy became as much about the transfer fees
05:53as about the goals that he was scoring, or maybe not scoring. If Juve was the proof of concept and
05:59the Real return was the seal of approval at the top level, Chelsea was the start of the downfall.
06:05As Antonio Puente's big signing to replace Diego Costa, Morata started like a dream,
06:10six goals and six league games, including a hat-trick against Stoke. But then after a while,
06:15the misses started to creep in. The one-on-one squandered, the headers mistimed,
06:20and the offsides piling up. Every morning Morata woke up, he got flagged offside.
06:25The Arsenal game in particular, three golden chances, all wasted, became symbolic of his
06:31Chelsea career. Conte defended his star man, but we were starting to see what Gigi Buffon had
06:36mentioned during his time at Juve, that Morata could be the best in the world if he only got over
06:42his mental hang-ups. He finished with 11 league goals in his first season. Okay, not terrible,
06:47but not what you'd expect from a £60 million striker. And in England, there is zero patience.
06:54The truth is more nuanced though. His movement was elite. He linked play beautifully and contributed
06:58goals, not forgetting that he played parts that year with a chronic back injury. He missed weeks
07:03at a time, never really got his rhythm back, and suddenly he looked like a player who was haunted
07:07by his own finishing. Every miss went viral, every mistake was a meme, and in the unforgiving
07:13Premier League spotlight, the narrative shifted from record signing to flop. Yet the story wasn't
07:19finished, because if Chelsea was the chapter of ridicule, Spain would become the chapter
07:24of resilience.
07:44Whilst Morata's career in the following years with Atletico Madrid and Juventus marked him as a
07:49reliable, if not frustrating, player at times, especially when scoring three offside goals in
07:54one game versus Barcelona. International football is where Morata's story gets a little bit
07:59complicated. His indifferent club form led to him, controversially you could say at the time,
08:04missing out on a place at the 2018 World Cup in Russia, where Spain lost their manager on the eve of
08:10the tournament and struggled as a result, going out in the round of 16 to the hosts. It was a complete
08:15nightmare for everybody involved. Then at Euro 2020, he was back in the squad, leading goalscorer with
08:21goals against Poland, Croatia and Italy. But after missing a penalty in the semi-final shootout,
08:26God, the abuse just rolled in.
08:29And now faces Donnarumma with Italy 3-2 up.
08:33And it's Morata!
08:34And this is Spain's penalty in hand.
08:37And it's saved.
08:38Please make it! Please make it!
08:47It's 3-2 to Italy after 4 apiece.
08:51I had already done it very badly in many moments of my career, but in that moment it was an
08:57real pain.
08:58Is this a player short of confidence or short of quality?
09:03Uh, they've already got a centre-forward that can't score goals, but why would they say another one?
09:08I mean...
09:08And guess what?
09:10Álvaro Morata missed the chances.
09:11And when you have that, if you're Luis Enrique, you have no choice but to take him out.
09:15It's probably time for Luis Enrique to maybe have a look on the side and try to find a different player to put on the other top.
09:22I also had to simulate lesiones.
09:25His family were even threatened, his kids were booed at school.
09:29Morata became a scapegoat, the face of Spain's failures, even as the man keeping them alive in
09:34tournaments and taking them further than they'd gotten in the three previous major tournaments.
09:39So, World Cup 2022 rolls around and he's in the squad, scores in every group game as they fall to the
09:44round of 16 penalty shootout again, and it just seems, for whatever reason, nothing is clicking.
09:49Between what Morata is bringing to the team and the team's achievements, there just isn't really anything that's lining up.
09:56And yet, fast forward to Euro 2024, and things finally fall into place.
10:02Not only was Morata there, he was captain by this point.
10:05Proof that experiences maketh the man, whether good or bad.
10:09Spain arrived with a new golden generation coming through.
10:12He had Pedri, Laminya Mal, Nico Williams, new exciting players.
10:16And the man to lead them out, wearing the armband, who had seen it all over the years,
10:20who'd witnessed the transition from the old guard to the new, was Alvaro Morata.
10:25He scored in the group stages, this time against Croatia again, worked tirelessly in the knockouts,
10:30and even after being taken out by a security guard in the semi-final against France,
10:34he played through to lift the trophy as captain, beating England in the final.
10:40The detail is undeniable now. Morata is Spain's third highest all-time scorer at major tournaments,
10:46with a record of just under a goal every other game.
10:49For a man once booed by his own fans, that is some turnaround.
10:53So, here's the truth about Alvaro Morata.
10:56Yes, he misses chances. Yes, the memes will never go away.
11:00But strip that back, and what you've really got is one of the most decorated and underrated
11:05strikers of his generation.
11:07Two Champions League titles, two La Liga titles, two Serie A titles, plus even more
11:12trophies in England and Turkey to boot, plus a Euro 2024 trophy as Spain's captain.
11:18That is not the CV of a fraud. That's the CV of a player who's delivered on some of the
11:23biggest stages football has to offer. What makes him so special then is that
11:27if you dig behind the numbers, you see all the setbacks too. The Champions League final loss,
11:32being left out of the 2018 World Cup squad after a tough year in a new country,
11:36unnecessary hate in the face of a collective team failure, online mockery that seems to just
11:41constantly resurface at every moment, and yet he's still come out with a career that most people,
11:46no, most footballers would kill for. More than a meme, more than a punchline,
11:51Alvaro Morata, respect the name.
11:53Alvaro Morata, respect the name.
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