In these last months of the league, Asier Illarramendi has his last chance to triumph at Real Madrid.

So far, the Basqueman has not been able to win over the Bernabéu, one of the most demanding stadiums in the world. The Real faithful may not be impressed with one thing or another about the player, but what they can’t complain about is the effort that the puts in on the pitch when given his opportunities.

Illarra is not as graceful as Kroos is. Neither does he appear to give his absolute all like Modric does. However, the fact is that no other player in the entire Real Madrid squad runs as much as Illarra does.
Against Real Sociedad, he ran 12.43 kilometres in the ninety minutes he played. This is the furthest any Real player has run in a match so far this season.

Behind him we have Mutriku with 12.11 km in the Almeria game followed by Illarra himself with 11.87 km when he played against Celta. The top five runners so far this season are completed by James and Kroos.

The Colombian ran 11.63 km in the game against Athletic de Bilbao, while the German covered 11.6 km in the derby match against Rayo Vallecano. Taking a look at these figures, one thing is quite clear – nobody runs like Illarra does.

- Article published in MARCA (02-02-15)