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 last night’s podcast where Matt and I break down the win (and more) for 34 minutes:
- I’ve seen post-game analysis in two extremes from this game. One on hand, some people feel this was a disastrous performance where Real Madrid were lucky to win; on the other hand I’ve seen people claim Inter were lucky not to lose by more goals and that there was an overreaction to the way Real Madrid played.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Inter found it way too easy to play their way through Real Madrid’s
defense for the majority of this game, exercised control for large stretches in nearly every part of the field, and Thibaut Courtois made seven saves. But, there’s also this: Real Madrid were missing three key midfielders (four including Aurelien Tchouameni who made his season debut off the bench), missed sitters — including two from Jude Bellingham that he would score 99 times out of 100 with his eyes closed — and generated an xG of 3.03 (compared to Inter’s 1.73, and, just a reminder, Inter is also one of the best teams in the world).
But it’s also true that Inter had a much higher field tilt and were getting to their spots with relative ease just by having fluid offense and confusing the hell out of Real Madrid.
I don’t care much about possession stats, generally. I’ve seen Real Madrid have 70% of the ball with zero control on the game while I’ve also seen them have 35% while having full control. It all comes down to defensive compactness and efficiency in the final third — two things which Real Madrid did not have. And that’s what they should be criticized for. Not possession.
- Trent Alexander-Arnold. I’m going to preface this segment by stating that I do not blame Trent for being deployed in midfield. That is not his fault, neither is it his fault that Real Madrid were missing so many midfielders.
But — and this is going to sound harsh — playing him in the double pivot effectively made it look like Real Madrid were playing with 10 men. He was a net negative in every aspect. People float this idea to us often: ‘why don’t we just play Trent in midfield to solve our control issues’?
And I wish I could pin this response: ‘Because receiving the ball on the right wing with your body open is much different from receiving the ball in the middle facing your goal under pressure’. Trent looked lost defensively, didn’t complete a single long ball, and completed just 83% of his passes.
Again, this is not his fault, but hopefully that’s the last time we see it. I like Trent. I’m not going to be upset with him being deployed in midfield the same way I wouldn’t be upset with Kylian Mbappe playing as a center-back and playing poorly.
- More Dean Huijsen love is needed. I wish I could take credit for this but I can’t (but I’m jealous I didn’t come up with it): I saw Leah Revelle say the other day that after Huijsen inherited the number 4, he inherited some of Sergio Ramos’s soul as well.
It’s plausible. He’s been nearly perfect through these first five games of the season, which is ultra impressive considering how easily Real Madrid’s defensive shape has broken down before the play gets to him and he has to play firefighter. Huijsen’s distribution has been great, he clears crosses at an insulting rate (he had 12 clearances against Inter alone, and always dominates that metric), and has just CLEANED UP everything that comes into the half-space.
His partnership with Ibrahima Konaté has been very encouraging so far.
- How do we begin do discuss Vinicius Jr’s performance?
Heregoes: I am always forgiving of players who work very hard. Show me you bleed for the badge, show me your war face, show me your fight and hustle. Make opponents uncomfortable with your relentless energy. Vinicius had all of that. Against Inter, I thought he was unbelievable defensively. His body language on the defensive end was exemplary and showed me some real leadership.
Yet, offensively, he looks a shell of himself. This season (plus pre-season and large stretches of the last two years) he’s been locked up by virtually everyone, including Hector Bellerin less than a week ago. Bissek pocketed him easily. There was one instance where Lautaro Martinez was playing right-back for a split second, and he took the ball from Vinicius as if it was some five year old kid hanging off him.
I’m concerned about his offensive efficiency. Mourinho said after the game that Vinicius’s offensive output will come soon. I hope he’s right.
- Will Real Madrid’s poor finishing eventually normalize?
The reality is that Real Madrid should have won all fives games so far. Four out of five isn’t bad, but that game against Real Betis should’ve been iced by half-time. What tends to happen when teams underperform their xG is that things eventually normalize, so hopefully that’s what happens — but last season it never normalized and the team underperformed their xG by the end of the season.
A lot of our microanalysis would be irrelevant if Real Madrid just consistently put their chances away. If you remember, even during the three-peat, the team had tactical holes; but it never really mattered because Gareth Bale would score from 40 yards and Cristiano Ronaldo would score a bicycle kick. More recent examples: It doesn’t really matter (so far) if Barca play a high line that can be exploited because they’ve scored 22 fucking goals in five games. The finishing needs to improve.
