Real Madrid: Real issues or mirage?

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DATE_FORMAT_LC5 1620

Real Madrid is the most successful football club in the world. Part of why is because the club has in its DNA the ability to win tough matches.

This year that hasn’t been the case though, as Real Madrid have somehow managed to lose most of the big matches they’ve played.

This is a problem, because they won’t win the Champions League the way things are going.

Do they really struggle against big teams or is it a mirage? Let’s take a look at the most recent match they played, a derby against arch-rivals Atletico Madrid.

Diego Simeone sent out his squad in a 4-4-2 formation keeping a rigid shape to counter Madrid’s enormous talent.

Carlo Ancelotti sent out a 4-2-3-1 as his side has lots of injury problems. He played both Aurelien Tchouameni and Marco Asensio as centre-backs, both out of position. Up front, we had Kylian Mbappe and Vinicius Junior with Jude Bellingham manning the right side. Highly potent.

Highly porous as well, which has been an issue that has persisted for most of this year. Teams simply pass through that first line too easily.

Opponents overwhelm them at the centre of the pitch. What Simeone did right with his formation was countering the press of Madrid by keeping the play on the outside. His team formed triangles with the two central midfielders as the wing players.

So what ended up happening when Atletico Madrid played out wide? Well, the central backs of Madrid remained in the box so when Atletico took over the middle, the attackers operated freely in front of Madrid’s goal. We’ve seen this before so it was nothing new.

It opened up the attacking options for Atletico and they took advantage of that. They scored, and then sat back. This wasn’t that shocking because that’s how Simeone plays. He got what he wanted and then switched to defence.

Madrid adapted well and played much better in the second half managing to pull out a draw - an overall decent result for them. They stay at the top thanks to this draw and they remain the favourites to win La Liga.

The match, however, showed that they have massive issues which have persisted for a very long time. Part of that is simply the make-up of the team. Luka Modric manned the middle for many years but he’s not the same player anymore. Toni Kroos is not there anymore and that’s the biggest problem because no player stepped up to take his position.

In fairness to the players there, no one can do that. This means teams have lots of options as to how to attack Madrid, especially with their injuries lately. Atletico nearly won. Time will tell if Pep Guardiola finds a way to win with Manchester City considering their own problems lately.

But it’s pretty clear that this will persist for Real Madrid and that might just end up costing them similar to how it cost them against Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup.

Because there is no way to fix it internally and the transfer period is over as well. This is it.

Хозяева - Гости

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ОсасунаРеал Мадрид 15/02/2025 16:15

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