In this edition of tactical observations, we look ahead to the importance of Trent Alexander-Arnold, a sneak peak at Barcelona’s defensive line, and eight other items:
1. Huijsen, deep-lying quarterback
First of all, a disclaimer: I’m not harsh on Dean Huijsen’s decision to foul Mikel Oyarzabal on Saturday night. Huijsen made a calculated decision to make a tactical foul (something that is actively taught by coaches to do) knowing that he’s not denying a clear-cut change with 40 yards to spare and Eder Militao also in position to defend.
This was a referee mistake, not a Huijsen mistake.
The on-ball composure from Dean Huijsen is a gift. He slings long-range bombs with ease and comfort — synapses firing naturally with rhythm. It takes milliseconds for Huijsen to calculate the target and initiate a switch. He does it in one motion at a prolific rate, reminding us of Toni Kroos.
I am a sucker for long-range diagonals. It is a simple yet important fundamental that helps shift defensive blocks from one side to another. We see Fede Valverde hit them, but Huijsen hits them at a higher clip.
Huijsen had 301 touches on the ball through three La Liga games. Only one player, Pedri, had more. But the interesting part is that Huijsen has even more touches in the middle third of the field than Pedri does, and part of that is because Real Madrid are holding their defensive line as high as some teams deploy their midfield
Another part of this is that Real Madrid are much more possession-dominant under Xabi Alonso than they were under Carlo Ancelotti, and Huijsen is the main instigator of ball progression. He won’t have to hit as many long balls with the team holding such a high line (long balls are often a symptom of getting pressed and heaving it away as a last resort), but he has it in his toolbox.
Both with Spain and Real Madrid, opponents are allowing him space to pick out targets. Huijsen can hit them with either foot:
Real Madrid couldn’t have sign a more perfect center-back given Huijsen’s age, club allegiance, and modern ball-playing ability.
2. Mastantuono link-up
One of the most noticeable aspects of Franco Mastantuno’s game in these first few games of the season is his incessant demand on the ball on the right side, constantly searching to get touches and get others involved:
Mastantuono starts his positioning on the right wing and recognizes a central outlet is needed. He cuts inside and drags the full-back, then, in one motion, turns around the second marker while setting up the cutting Julian Alvarez.
It was fascinating to see Mastantuono and Lionel Messi occupy similar zones and link up together on the right-wing / right half-space. For a fleeting moment on the timeline, one of the nation’s youngest starters in its entire history, will link up with its greatest ever player. Argentina games are fun to tune in to for reasons like that — and we’re all excited for Nico Paz, Serie A’s best creator, to get more reps too.
It’s fine to call out concerns you have with Mastantuono, like his lack of explosiveness and speed. One thing you can’t call out: his ‘personality’. He’s fearless. He wants the spotlight; the pressure. He runs himself into the ground on defense. He shoots on sight, and his long distance zingers are deadly.
Through three La Liga games Mastantuono slung 4.2 shots per 90. Only five players let fly more. Mastantuono was also the most prolific shooter in the Argentinian Professional League in 2025.
The defensive hustle helps some of the growing pains. Mastantuono is currently younger than Vinicius Jr was before Santiago Solari promoted the Brazilian as a starter. When you put it that way, it helps you remember: This kid is raw. We are far away from the most polished version of this prodigy.
3. Mbappe is unstoppable
It’s hard not to swoon over Kylian Mbappe right now. His goal-scoring hasn’t cooled down one bit since sliding up into La Liga Pichichi Kingdom. He’s now added more explosiveness and agility, and, most importantly, he’s starting to run himself into the ground as part of the collective press that Xabi Alonso has insisted on.
Seeing him and Aurelien Tchouameni link up with France has been a treat. They connect well on both club and international level. Tchouameni takes souls and launches vertically; Mbappe cooks and finishes.
Through four games, Mbappe already has the most key passes (14), successful take-ons (19), and shot-creating actions (36) in the Big Five Leagues, and is on pace for another big scoring season.
4. Trent will be a focal point
This might be the most under-discussed storyline from the first few games: Trent Alexander-Arnold, barely finding his feet, was a huge part of Xabi Alonso’s blueprint in the Club World Cup, and, despite being rotated alongside the excellent Dani Carvajal in La Liga, is slowly improving into the offensive force we know him to be. He is going to be one of the main funnels for Real Madrid’s offense.
Think of how much good work, offensively, Trent already did in his first few cameos: assists, overloads, verticality, progressive passing. He’s barely set foot, but his footprints are already baked into the scheme.
Vinicius Jr and Kylian Mbappe are going to feast on these long distance heaves:
Look at how effortless Trent slings it. He barely sets it up for himself. One look, one kick. Three seconds later, the ball is on Vinicius’s boot in a good attacking position.
He is a sniper, and always on the lookout — as early as possible — to hit the defense-breaking dagger. This one to Jude Bellingham — nearly pulled off — was one such quick-trigger:
It’s the Trent signature. Again, barely any set up. Trent tilts his head up and fires. The aim is for the diagonal to curve right into Bellingham’s path, just behind the back-peddling defender. Few in this generation can hit that. Toni Kroos was the master.
But Trent, doing it from the right-back position, is one of one. He is in the 99th (NINETY NINTH!!) percentile among right-backs when it comes to progressive passing. From 2020 – 2023, no player in the Premier League hit more crosses into the box (82). At his offensive peak, arguably 2021 – 2022, he was probably the best creator in the league — first in expected assists and first in shot-creating actions. Trent is still only 26. Xabi Alonso may ensure Trent’s best days are still ahead of him. Alonso uses his full-backs for everything from a build-up and chance-creation standpoint.
Trent has also never had a right central-midfielder like Fede Valverde before to aid in the two-way balance of the team:
There are strengths and weaknesses to every player. Trent has offensive abilities akin to a supernova, but the space he’ll leave behind on defense won’t be ideal. Some of that will come down to Trent’s positioning, and some of it will have to do with the way Xabi Alonso will station the team’s defense.
Both Trent, as well as the left-back on the opposite side, will be high up the pitch. Even the most impressive of sprinters will have difficulty back-tracking in transition if they’re high up the field. Plan A is for the team to win the ball through rabid counter-pressing; plan B will be manic transition defense and Thibaut Courtois being ready to step off his line. The onus will be on the center-backs to stay organized and ready.
But there’s little doubt that Trent’s cost-benefit analysis leans heavily in the right direction for the benefit of the team. Long has Real Madrid’s wing-back situation been dire. Ferland Mendy declined defensively (and was never great offensively) — mostly because of niggling injuries — and Dani Carvajal, the most reliable wing-back, unfortunately had a devastating ACL injury. With Carvajal back and Trent here, it’s nice to see the team have assurance at such an important position again.
We’ve barely seen Trent. The Club World Cup and these first few games is a bonus preview. He was not yet 100% match fitness, and at times looked a little leg-heavy and inaccurate with his passing early on. My guess is he’ll be much better as the season progresses, with a full training regimen under his belt and a style of football that takes advantage of his best traits.
5. Arda Güler, ready to facilitate
Güler always gave us a glimpse of his wizardry. Now under Xabi Alonso, he is ready to take the ultimate leap as head chef of the biggest club in the world. Far-fetched? Ask Xabi Alonso, super-vocal about the belief he has in the young Turk to play in a deeper role and solve the team’s ball progression issues in midfield.
Güler is an inventor. He sees plays steps before they happen:
He zips it quickly, precisely, on silver platters:
This version of Güler will feel like a new signing. Real Madrid didn’t have this type of player last season. (They did, but he hadn’t been unearthed and entrusted.)
My prediction: Güler will justify the faith Alonso instills in him, and with his vision and execution, will rack up the most assists in La Liga. If he falls short of that prediction, it won’t be by much. Book it. This is a bonafide playmaker Real Madrid have on their hands.
Real Madrid have a blueprint that suits him. Güler believes that the more touches he has, the better he is — that’s why he prefers to play in midfield, as he told me during the Club World Cup. This system feeds him. And he will feed others.
6. Alvaro Carreras, exactly as advertised
“A nice balance to Trent on the other side” is how one Portuguese scout working for a top club described Carreras to me just before Real Madrid signed him officially.
Carreras is sound on the ball — composed escaping pressure and the type of progressive passer Xabi Alonso looks for in his system. He is in the 99th percentile in interceptions among full-backs in Europe. He is feasting on those so far this season, capitalizing on a system that collectively hunts as he gobbles up opposing players trying to escape pressure on the wing. The fight looks great. The eye test has been very positive so far.
Carreras may not be Marcelo, but is a very tidy dribbler, and makes reliable overloads and underloads for Vinicius Jr. If he passes the ball off, he’s darting into a passing lane to create space for Vinicius. His off-ball movement and understanding of where to be to help the team advance into the final third has looked very promising.
Simple and efficient, how a teammate should be. Win the ball, pass, move into space, don’t abandon your teammates — the job is never done:
Carreras is solid and competent.
7. Tchouameni, DM, pillar, transcendant
What a feel good story. Nearly a full year after Aurelien Tchouameni was whistled by his own fans at the Bernabeu for his performances in the first half of the 2024 – 205 season, the Frenchman has been lights out since January of 2025. This year, he has been the best performing defensive midfielder in the world, and now, a full year on from that rock bottom moment, Tchouameni just might be the team’s most important player.
Is there anyone else in the squad that can do exactly what he does? He’s the organizer. He can drop between the center-backs as the third center-back, put in perfect slide challenges, and he’s the strongest aerial defender while the biggest aerial threat in the opposition’s box.
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Through four games, Tchouameni has the fifth most interceptions (eight) in the Big Five leagues. His a pillar, a constant downloader of Xabi Alonso’s tactical instructions. There is a lot on his shoulders.
8. Early Fede Valverde assessment
Fede Valverde isn’t doing anything that particularly jumps out right now, and people are not used to that.
What people are used to: Valverde carrying the ball through traffic, driving the ball forward, shooting from distance, or sliding in for spectacular challenges.
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Valverde’s production is still there, even if not in numbers. Xabi Alonso’s scheme is built around positional play. There are off-ball assignments for everyone, and all of those individual movements culminate in a collective machine that lessens the burden on any individual player.
Valverde has to do less weight lifting. This is a good thing. We have been begging for a day where players like him and Jude Bellingham are less burdened, so that they can focus on their ingenuity to break lines.
Valverde remains dedicated to the cause, and is still doing a bunch of important things that aren’t jumping out. Here’s an exercise: just watch Valverde next time Real Madrid play — his positioning has been excellent. Despite being quiet on the ball against Osasuna’s low block in the first game, he had a game-saving challenge late. In the second game against Real Oviedo, he started to drive the ball forward more. In the third game against Mallorca, his off-ball runs were creating havoc for Mallorca’s defense. In the fourth game, admittedly (off the bench in a disadvantageous team situation), he looked a little leg-heavy tracking runners and his passing lacked crispness,
Just before the international break, these runs dragged Mallorca defenders around, and provided Real Madrid with numerical superiority in the final third:
He also made clever runs into the right-half space in the first half. That’s his bread and butter — undetected runs that give outlets to players for the right-back and midfielders to pick out.
Valverde will get back to punking opponents soon. He’ll have ‘louder’ games as the season goes on — it’s hard to imagine anything else.
9. Early scouting on Liverpool: midfield suffocation
As of the time of this writing, Liverpool are still trying to hit stride, but slowly ramping up. Fours wins after four games sees them top of the table — not bad for a newly assembled star-studded team still trying to find its feet.
Some of their kinks will likely get ironed out by the time their clash with Real Madrid rolls around in November. Ditto Real Madrid’s version of Xabi-ball.
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One thing that Liverpool did at an elite level in their third game against Arsenal — a 1 -0 grind-out, boring win on the back of some great defense and a Dominik Szoboszlai belter — was how tight their midfield functioned without the ball.
Keep an eye on it: Liverpool are not pressing that high. They allow 10.46 passes per defensive action (nearly mid-tableish). They enable opposing center-backs to have the ball but pick out passing lanes and deny entry into their own around the half-way line. Real Madrid’s midfielders won’t have much time on the ball — certainly not on the level of anything they’ve seen so far this season.
10. Exposing Barcelona’s high line
Through the first three games (discounting the fourth game against an amateurish Valencia), Barcelona were getting ripped apart like Claudio Salazar’s body in Narcos after Pacho Herrera ties his limbs to four motorcycles driving in different directions. They conceded 12 big chances — rock bottom of the league — and are sorely missing Iñigo Martinez.
Levante, Mallorca, and Rayo Vallecano all exploited the high line to varying degrees. Levante probably did it the most without actually winning — missing two huge chances just outside the six-yard box. But Rayo did it with more efficiency, and did it with some interesting tactical wrinkles.
Rayo always had at least one man running through the middle, often intentionally offside to get a head start while Barca organize their defensive line at the half-way marker. But the ball goes out wide, not down the middle, to a runner down the wing. Once the cross comes in, it’s too late — Barca can’t recover and mark the middle man in time.
Here’s another variation of that same play, where Rayo’s middle-man sprints immediately into the box before there is even a clear-cut chance. Seconds later, he’s wide open — Barcelona completely blind to what’s happenning:
That’s one way around Mbappe’s offside problem. In those situations, he can cheat offside, because the ball won’t directly go to him. Real Madrid has speedy wingers who can receive the ball out wide and square centrally to Mbappe in a goal-scoring position.
Often the key to Barcelona is giving them no respect or comfort on the ball, which is something Rayo did without fear:
That is a brilliant zonal high press, where Rayo are covering multiple passing lanes at once.
So far no team in the league has recovered the ball as efficiently through a counter-press as Real Madrid have. It will be interesting to see Xabi-ball, a bit more seasoned by October, against a team that Real Madrid couldn’t even touch last season.
