Featured Image Credit: Getty
Topics: Real Madrid, Football, Champions League
Luke Davies
A former Real Madrid player is now living a completely different life despite being a highly-rated midfielder during his peak.
Cast your mind back to 2009. You may remember the summer of that year as a period of huge change at Los Blancos.
Madrid spent a combined €258.50 (£218.5m) on the likes of Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka, Karim Benzema and Xabi Alonso.
But a little-known 22-year-old midfielder also joined from Getafe.
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Esteban Granero, who is now 37, joined Los Blancos. The Madrid-born player had previously come through Madrid’s ‘La Fabrica’ academy, but found it hard to break into the first team.
However, this changed when he re-signed, and he made 32 appearances for the club in the 2009/10 season, but Los Blancos failed to win a trophy.
His opportunities became limited, and he left for then-Premier League side Queens Park Rangers in 2012 for a reported £9m fee.
Once again, he failed to secure a regular starting place at the West London-based club and returned to his native Spain with a loan to Real Sociedad in 2013 before penning a permanent deal at the La Liga outfit in 2014.
He then signed for Espanyol before seeing out his career at Marbella FC. Granero retired in July 2021.
And despite making 437 professional appearances, his football career did not go exactly as he may have wanted. However, he may have a huge impact on the game in the future.
The Spaniard founded Olocip, a company which specialises in the development and application of artificial intelligence (AI) in football with the idea to “move analysis from the past to future” according to Granero, who spoke to Sky Sports in 2023.
“In terms of prediction of performance, we have been selling our platform for years already," he explained. "So, now that the AI wave is coming to us in sport, we are ready to solve things, and we already have a name and a reputation in the industry."
Olocip aims to aid decision-making both on and off the field.
"For example, if a club are signing a player, the context will change and therefore the performance will change,” he added.
"If you analyse yourself using AI, you can identify what you are doing well and badly from an objective point of view," Granero continued.
"This is very important to make a good choice in the transfer window, and to explain to your club, or the club that wants you, that you deserve a contract, or an extension, or that they shouldn't reduce your salary because you are going to perform even better.
"These kinds of things are very important. When a player is going to move to a team, he has uncertainty, for sure. But this uncertainty can be reduced. If you have three offers, we can tell you which one of these offers will be the best in terms of performance."
Several businesses and football clubs have already worked with Olocip - with the likes of Valencia, Espanyol, Marbella, and even tennis legend Rafael Nadal using the company's technology to their advantage, according to their website.