These observations — where I look at Real Madrid’s history, its players on loan, Castilla, tactical tidbits, and other relevant thoughts — are now a regular thing. All previous editions can be found
here.Here is a new thing I’m committing to this season: Five semi-informal bullet points after each game.
Also, check out the post-game podcast where Leah and I break down the win (and more) for 56 minutes:
- A quartet I trust.
I trust every single person in the ‘Once de Gala’ right now. But since the attacking superstars already
get a ton of love, I’d like to focus on the backline quartet of Fede Valverde, Ibrahima Konaté, Dean Huijsen, and Marc Cucurella.
When those four play together, there is a certain baseline of defensive solidity that’s achieved. Cucurella has gone up a level with Yan Diomande in front of him helping defensively, and Fede is Fede. The Konaté – Huijsen partnership has been terrific.
Konaté completed 11 of his 12 long balls — including one gorgeous, over the top looping ball to set Arda Güler on a breakaway.
Huijsen cleaned up, over and over again, while being excellent on the ball. Valencia didn’t threaten much, but when they did, it was on his side. Valverde and Güler, as a result, didn’t have that much defensive work to do on their flank.
Of course, you can’t speak about the backline without bringing up players like Yan Diomande who’ve put their life on the line to help defensively. The structure ahead of the back-four has improved immensely with the new lineup.
- A professional, no nonsense, business-like performance.
We know Valencia are a bad a football team. We know they’re thugs. We know their whole shtick and plan is to break legs, get in heads, and feed off their supporters.
Despite the clear talent gap between the two sides, Mestalla is a brutal place to play for the aforementioned reasons.
We’ve been so used to suffering there, that we expected to continue suffering.
But Real Madrid showed up focused and locked in — and I’d have to really dig deep to think about the last time this team showed up so ruthlessly and professionally at this stadium.
Javier Aguirre set up his back-five and threw bodies at Diomande. Pablo Maffeo, Valencia’s new CEO of brainless and talentless thuggery, again, didn’t come to play football. His only purpose was to play mind games and injure opponents.
And yet, Diomande and Cucurella didn’t bite. No one did. They laughed it off and played them off the park. Valencia grew more and more frustrated that their usual mind games didn’t work, and in the end, it was them that got in their own heads more and more.
Always impose your will.
Mourinho deserves a lot of credit for creating such a unified and focused team.
- Finding the right ways to break down low blocks.
The fluidity of the team helped unlock several good chances. Off-ball unpredictability is often the best way to break down deep, compact, defensive lines. Watch Cucurella and Valverde flying into the left and right half spaces, and Güler and Bellingham both roaming intelligently to create outlets and solutions for their teammates.
Part of the benefit of this particular line-up is that in addition to people making great vertical runs to drag defenders around and create overloads in certain areas of the field, there are also capable deep passers — Huijsen, Konaté, Silva — to reward those runs.
Valencia defended in a 5-3-2 or 5-4-1 block depending on Danjuma’s positioning, and Real Madrid just carved them and pulled them around like puppeteers, simultaneously erasing Danjuma as a transition threat with how well they counter-pressed and tracked.
Final stats: 2.34 xG (vs .18), 6 big chances (vs 0), 19 shots (vs 4), etc.
- Rest, of lack thereof.
It would’ve been nice to give rest to two players in particular who are racking up a ton of mileage: Bellingham and Mbappe. Other players who’ve racked up heavy minutes, like Konaté, will at least probably not start on the international break.
Bellingham, meanwhile, will play Nations League games against Croatia and Spain respectively. Mbappe has Nations League games against Italy and Türkiye.
Mourinho made his five subs after the 84th minute, and two of those were in the 91st minute.
That’s my only criticism, or rather, concern. These guys need to be bubble wrapped when the games are clearly over and the three points are more than ensured.
- The Vinicius suspension is now officially over.
Now it gets really interesting. Real Madrid have clearly looked more structured and efficient, on both ends of the field, without Vinicius. The most common question we get on the podcast now is ‘will Mourinho put Vinicius back into the starting line-up?’
My hunch is that he won’t, but only time will tell if I’m right on that. Mourinho will likely sell the idea of Vinicius being “rested” after coming back from Singapore with Brazil for the Celta Vigo game later this month. Beyond that, it gets more interesting. The two games I’d look at in particular are Athletic Club and Arsenal, back-to-back, away from home, as a bigger indicator of where Mourinho’s head is at with the best XI.
Even when Vinicius was available, Mourinho had no problem taking the Brazilian off early, and he’s been vocal that he won’t put any one player above what’s best for the team.
