Yan Diomande only needed 29 minutes to show Real Madrid fans exactly what they are getting

Real Madrid’s newest and most expensive signing, Yan Diomande, made his unofficial debut for the club in their win over Schalke on Sunday evening.

A game that ended 3-0 without a goal or an assist from Diomande, it was a good test for all players who had come back from their post-World Cup holidays.

Players like Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham had cameos, and were able to get in some minutes in the pre-season campaign. Diomande was also one of them, as he made the team for the first time in his Real Madrid career.

He was brought on in the second half to make his debut for the club, and in just 29 minutes, Real Madrid found out exactly what they were getting in Diomande.

Yan Diomande works incredibly hard on the pitch

The youngster, as soon as he stepped onto the pitch, had one positive action after another. He looked confident with the ball, and hungry without it. People were hugely impressed by his dribbles completed, which were more than anyone on either team despite only playing 29 minutes — but it was more impressive to see him defend the way he defended.

At Real Madrid, it is an extremely rare sight for an attacker to move that close to the defense and work as hard as Diomande did in his first game. He went back to Trent’s side and helped him defend in many occasions — also winning the ball and clearing it on one of them.

He was one of the first players to double-team one of Schalke’s players when it was needed, and it just looked like Diomande meant business from the get-go.

Apart from this, he was also a brilliant presence with the ball. Aside from the dribbles, he also created a half-chance for Vinicius Jr off a break, which the Brazilian was not able to latch on to.

His constant movement on the right side helped Trent with a lot of space to put into the box for crosses to Carlos Espi, too.

Diomande’s first game for Real Madrid was good. It wasn’t amazing, it wasn’t flashy — it was just solid, and oozed of hard work and resilience — which is exactly what Real Madrid need from their newest right-winger.

That is not to say that they wouldn’t need more from Diomande, but as far as unofficial debuts go, especially for a cameo of just 29 minutes, the Ivory Coast winger did really well to make his mark on the game.