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 Lucas, Mehedi and I break down the loss (and more) for one hour and 34 minutes:
- Jose Mourinho (and I want to preface any Mourinho criticism with the truth that the main issue here is the way this squad is built as well as the ensuing politics that come with it). There are losses that are mostly out of Jose Mourinho’s control, and losses where he deserves more criticism. There’s not much he can do against Real Betis if the team creates multiple big chances and misses them; but there are losses like last night where he got the line-up and tactics wrong.
Look: After Dean Huijsen’s red card, his hands were tied, and there’s only
so much he could’ve done at that point. And, to be fair, there is also the very obvious fact that Atletico Madrid should’ve been down to 10 men in the first half.
That out of the way, I don’t think Real Madrid’s transition attack and ability to escape pressure is good enough to sit back and invite pressure against any good team, let alone a ravenous Atletico Madrid at the Metropolitano in what is arguably the most difficult place to play for Real Madrid in modern history.
There is no one solution to fixing this mess, but there are are some obvious low-hanging fruits. One of them: Bernardo Silva can help with experience, control, and level-headedness, and it was no coincidence that Real Madrid’s only semi-respectable minutes in the second half were when he entered the field to help Yan Diomande — the latter dribbling well and winning free-kicks, and Bernardo slinging them in while helping the team control the ball for the first time since the first half:
Remember: Mourinho said after the game that “I don’t blame my players for today. They gave everything, I’m proud of them. I want to hug them. They showed hunger, determination, and competed until the final whistle. I feel very good about their performance.” I actually don’t have any issue with that quote and the way he took the blame off his players, and my bigger concern is about how he deals with it internally; but the reality is that the players were horrendous too in addition to Mourinho setting up the team to fail — not only with the double pivot pairing, but also the devastatingly-bad defensive effort and positioning of Vinicius Jr and Kylian Mbappe (particularly the former, which I’ll elaborate more on in a different bullet point).
To be fair, I’m not sure if Vinicius and Mbappe were not defending due to design, or due to the players themselves. On one hand, we’ve seen Vinicius put in a superhuman defensive effort against Inter earlier this season, on the other hand, and Mourinho has often kept his forwards ahead of the play to take advantage in transition.
Either way, Mourinho’s approach was too passive. Long gone are the days you can rely on BBC in transition while Casemiro wins the ball and Kroos and Modric advance the ball quickly with one or two passes to murderous forwards. Vinicius and Mbappe are not built that way when they play together, and Valverde and Tchouameni cannot do what their predecessors did.
- Jose Mourinho (part two). Two things happened at half-time: 1) Real Madrid came out of the tunnel half asleep without any adjustments; 2) Diego Simeone introduced Koke for Marc Pubill, which gave them an overload and further advantage in midfield — a problem compounded by Dean Huijsen’s red card.
Look, I am very sympathetic to Mourinho. It’s very clear he’s dealing with the same problems Alvaro Arbeloa, Xabi Alonso, and Carlo Ancelotti all faced. Having said that, isn’t the whole point of Jose Mourinho in the year 2026 to challenge the status quo and defy the political hierarchy? Or maybe that’s the problem: It’s 2026, and that Mourinho is long gone.
Send the bat signal. We need him back. We need the man who is ruthless, has zero tolerance for mediocrity. There was a time for gentle parenting, but that time is not now.
Every single solution — every single way out of this mess — has to start with separating Vinicius and Mbappe from each other. If only one of them has to play, the tactical possibilities that open up are endless. You can put Yan Diomande on the left, or you could stick Mbappe on the left and throw in Carlos Espi. Heck, you could even put Mbappe on the left and throw Jude into the false 9 role, enabling Arda Güler to get his 10 spot back.
But Vinicius and Mbappe would thrive with a striker ahead of them. But together, they are redundant and become a collective net negative.
I am honestly not sure if Mbappe on the left wing would work because of his defensive issues and the fact he hasn’t played there in a long time, but at least I’m open to it (and Zinedine Zidane seems to want to try that with France). But the whole point is something else: Mourinho, and any coach, is tactically handcuffed until that big decision is made.
Mourinho, we’re begging you — make the big decision.
- I thought the Marc Cucurella crucifixion was harsh. I’m not here to say he was Paolo Maldini by any means, but the reality is that he had zero help defensively — not from Aurelien Tchouameni, not from Vinicius Jr, not from Fede Valverde, not from anybody. Cucurella had to virtually mark Kang-in Lee and Giuliano Simeone by himself. I don’t think people realize how difficult it is to do that at the Metropolitano. Please go and look at Vinicius Jr walking around and staring at Cucurella treading water in the following sequences: 2oth minute, 21st minute, 29th minute, 48th minute.
- The other low-hanging fruit I didn’t mention is to give Trent Alexander-Arnold a run. And I mean a run — a long run of games to find rhythm. If Denzel Dumfries is there for defensive purposes, he’s somehow not defending any better than Trent. If you’re going to rely on Valverde and Tchouameni as your double pivot, then you desperately need Trent’s ball progression.
- In any normal season, losing at the Metropolitano is not a huge deal. It’s a hell hole for us. Even in that incredible 2023 – 2024 season, this was the only game on the calendar the team lost all season. But this is not a normal season, and is surrounded by a two-year tornado of failures and disasters.
Last year, the loss at the Metropolitano was a huge reality check. This year, it’s another one. Now we look to Mourinho to fix this — because if the belief is that the only reason Real Madrid lost was because of the referee, we’re in big trouble.
