From Glory to Gloom: Real Madrid’s Troubling Season Unraveled
This season for Real Madrid has been a season full of the club having difficulties matching the success of previous years. They had an extremely successful season last year, winning both La Liga and the Champions League in Europe. They managed this with Jude Bellingham, who was new to the club and was hungry to prove his worth. With Kylian Mbappé joining the squad this season, he was supposed to help the squad continue the dominance that they have come to get used to. It took time for him to settle into the squad, but once he did, other issues arose in the camp of Los Blancos. Some of these issues included injuries in the defensive department, such as in their undisputed right back starter, Dani Carvajal, who suffered a potentially season-ending injury in October to his ACL. Éder Militão, the Brazilian center back for Real Madrid, also suffered this injury a month after Carvajal. Both players are out for the season and created defensive woes for the team in white.
Some of the other issues seemed to be more tactical-based. Naturally, Mbappé, Rodrygo, and Vinicius Júnior are all wingers who prefer to be on the left. Ancelotti was usually either playing in a 4-3-3 formation with Vinicius Júnior on the left wing, Mbappé as the center forward and Rodrygo on the right wing or a 4-2-3-1 formation which also employs a slightly modified version of the previous formation but with the wings slightly further back with Jude Bellingham playing a center attacking midfield role behind Mbappé as the sole striker. Both formations run into the same issues with three players in more offensive roles that all favor the left wing. This creates situations where players tend to drift to that side when making runs, and make it more difficult to create chances on offense. When you combine a difficulty in creating goals consistently with defensive issues that this club has faced this season due to injuries and lack of depth in the defensive department, you have a recipe for disaster.
How Can Real Madrid Bounce Back Next Season?
Real Madrid still have to finish up La Liga and Copa del Rey this season however, La Liga is unlikely to be won with the current issues that they are facing as a club and Copa del Rey is also a tall task for them to win considering their finals are against FC Barcelona which has been playing much better as of late. Even if Real Madrid were to win the Copa del Rey, it would just be a consolation prize compared to the high expectations they had coming into this season. In order to fix the issues that they have this season, they have to rebuild their defense around Raul Asencio, who has started to blossom this season for Los Blancos, and polish him into the next Sergio Ramos, as he is expected to become. They can sign other defensive prospects around him, like Dean Huijsen, who is a Spanish prodigy who plays for Bournemouth in the Premier League and has been piquing the interest of Los Blancos due to his recent performances in both club and international football while playing for Spain.
It may also be time to phase out Ancelotti from the head coach job; he has seemingly lost the confidence of the players and the locker room as a whole. Xabi Alonso has been the main candidate to replace Ancelotti following this season. This would be a breath of fresh air to the squad and may allow players who are currently struggling to find their best form to come back into their highest level of performance. Aside from moving on from Ancelotti, it may be time to also move on from older players in the squad or underused players such as 39-year-old Luka Modrić and Lucas Vázquez, who both have been faithful servants to the club and have won lots of silverware, but are being used less and less. In the case of Lucas Vázquez, he has been used out of his natural position, primarily being a band-aid for the right-back injury situation. When it comes to Luka Modrić, it is just a fact that age catches up to everyone, and it may be his time to move on from Los Blancos in order to allow newer players to take his place at the club, and perhaps he can retire from professional play as a Real Madrid legend. It seems he may be preparing for this, as he was just announced as a part-owner of the current EFL Championship club Swansea City A.F.C.
Lastly, the most important thing Real Madrid can do is prepare Mbappé in the same way they did to Cristiano Ronaldo in converting him from a winger to a natural striker that gave Ronaldo some of his deadliest goal-scoring seasons for Los Blancos. If Rodrygo can also be trained to be more comfortable on the right wing as well, or find a right winger on the transfer market, it will also solve another aspect of the offensive issues Real Madrid has. In order to win games, you need to be able to create chances to score and then convert those chances into goals. With these changes being implemented, Real Madrid can bounce back next season.
