Barring any transfer deadline day mayhem at the Bernabeu, Mariano Diaz will spend the next few months as a Real Madrid first team player. That, for a player with the 23-year-old's profile, is an incredible achievement.
There will be several former canteranos viewing Mariano's stratospheric rise with a twinge of envy: Borja Mayoral and Jese Rodriguez -- both who rose through the ranks as the next big thing in their time -- chief among them. Mayoral secured a decent loan move to Wolfsburg this summer and will be back, while Jese made a permanent transfer to PSG and in all likelihood won't be. Both got closer to first-team relevance than others, such as Raul de Tomas and Burgui, the former back in the Castilla fold after a loan at Cordoba and the latter back out on loan at Sporting Gijon.
Castilla have imported the latest star of Santiago Solari's reserve side in the form of Sergio Díaz, the 18-year-old sensation who is already tearing up Segunda B. Mariano's namesake, who scored two and provided an assist on his debut, will probably be the next Castilla promotion to the first team. In the meantime, Mariano knows he faces a battle to avoid a loan exit himself in January.
"Staying here at Madrid is a dream come true and I have until December to work hard and earn my place in the team," the Dominican forward said after making his Liga debut in the victory over Celta last weekend. "I've got until December to earn my place"
Mariano has already excited the Spanish press, who have been poring over FIFA regulations and satisfied themselves that the striker's one outing for the Dominican Republic in a friendly victory against Haiti in March 2013 leaves him free to pull on the red of La Roja. Mariano scored in that game, of course. That is basically what Mariano does, most notably from the bench. In 28 appearances for Castilla last season, 11 of them as a substitute, he scored 25 goals at a rate of one every 68 minutes. Mariano's haul in 2015-16 broke the historical record for a single Castilla season set by Emilio Butragueno and he also scored twice in the Segunda B playoffs.
Castilla fell short, but Zidane had seen enough during his stint in La Fabrica and promoted Mariano as soon as he took over the senior side in January. Attitude is a huge part of Zidane's ethos and other more illustrious players have suffered through a perceived lack of enthusiasm for making sacrifices for the greater good.
Mariano is unlikely to fall into the same professional pitfall having arrived in Zidane's set-up via Premia de Mar, Sanchez Llibre and Badalona after starting out in Espanyol's academy.
Zidane has been busy this summer in doing very little in the transfer market and building one of the finest benches in Europe. Mariano's place on it is undoubtedly well deserved, particularly after two goals in preseason. The trick now is making his presence felt at the highest level. Given the current state of Real's attacking options, he will get that chance. Karim Benzema, who missed 15 games last season, has played a total of 58 minutes so far in 2016-17 while Real's medical staff scramble for a solution to the striker's back and hip problems.
Cristiano Ronaldo should be available for the match against Osasuna. But after his recent injury issues, Zidane may choose to put his foot down on his star player's insistence on playing every minute of every fixture. Alvaro Morata's ability to lead the line consistently is also open to question after two seasons at Juventus during which he rarely played the full 90 minutes. Morata has started the season well, but can he be viewed as a solution to a scoring void if one occurs having hit 15 Serie A goals in two seasons in Turin? Zidane clearly thinks not.
The Real coach will have evaluated Morata's additional worth to his attack. The 23-year-old provided 19 assists during his time at Juve across all competitions. His link-up play will be interesting to watch in tandem with Ronaldo and Gareth Bale, upon who the main scoring burden will fall.
Mariano, meanwhile, will be the back-up to the back-up for now, but he offers a different set of skills to Morata. More of an instinctive scorer than anything else, Mariano will be very handy to have on the bench when Real need a player who will go for goal with the slightest of invitations: In 13 minutes against Celta he managed one attempt to Morata's three in 77. The only surprise, given Mariano's reputation as a super-sub, is that it didn't hit the back of the net.
In between now and December several surely will. Whether that will be enough to secure Mariano a second half-season at the Bernabeu depends on many intangibles. All Zidane's golden boy can do is what he did at Castilla, exactly as his coach advised after a bustling cameo against Celta: "He congratulated me and said 'carry on like that.'"