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  • The shadow of Mourinho.Zidane: "I can't say it doesn't bother me ... because it bothers me"

Although his new stadium may be less intimidating than old Ali Sami Yen, visiting Galatasaray always brings them. His hobby intimidates as few and leaves more than the lungs supporting the team. There, to the fort of the Turkish team, Real Madrid will go today to look for a victory that avoids a suffocation in the Champions League. Those of Zidane, with the backpack full of doubts after their trip on Saturday in Mallorca, have no margin of error: they add only one point in two games in the group stage. The white box will play a good part of its future options in the maximum continental competition. And he will do it before a plagued group of former LaLiga players.

Among them, Florin Andone (Romania, 1993). The 26-year-old attacker, owned by Brighton and assigned to Galatasaray since last summer, is the maximum offensive exponent of a team still orphaned by Radamel Falcao's goals. The Colombian, with problems in the Achilles tendon for three weeks, is doubtful for tonight's meeting.

Andone's history in football began in 2005 in Vinaroz (Castellón), where his family moved from Romania in search of a better future after the death of his father in a traffic accident. To the locality of the Valencian coast came the small Florin with his mother, Adriana , and his brother, Avidiu , who convinced him to attend the training of the modest team in the city. Meanwhile, her mother took her two children forward working as a cleaner.

January 5, 2015

Today the whole family resides in Istanbul. «I am convinced that if I had been born in a family with money I would not have come here. The work education that I have learned since childhood, has been key in my life, ”he said in an interview with La Voz de Galicia in spring. Despite his short stature and a fragile physique as a teenager, Castellón incorporated him for his lower categories. With these colors he debuted in Second B while still youthful. Later, an irregular adventure in the quarry of the Villarreal brought him to Atlético Baleares, where he won the confidence of the club that would make him debut in the First Division, Córdoba.

With 18 years, on January 5, 2015, Andone played his first minutes in LaLiga. The Romanian wears a tattoo with that date next to the dorsal that he wore that season, on 28. His fullness as a footballer came later in Deportivo de La Coruña, where he accumulated 19 goals in two seasons, being chosen best player of the competition in December of 2016, scoring three goals and giving two assists in four games.

Effort and work

Now, on loan from Brighton, the attacker shares costumes with old acquaintances from LaLiga, such as Feghouli (formerly from Almería and Valencia), Nzonzi (Sevilla), Emre Mor (Celta de Vigo) and, of course, Falcao (Atlético). A veteran staff, led by the also experienced technician Fatih Terim , 66, who is living his fourth stage in the city club that perches on two continents, Europe and Asia.

In the absence of Falcao, which will arrive between cottons, the Galatasaray entrusts its aim to the Romanian, to his spirit of effort and work, that which he acquired from his mother and his brother when the economic circumstances of the family had nothing to do with the present. Humble origins that forged Andone's character.

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  • Zinedine Zidane
  • Real Madrid
  • sports
  • Champions League

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