At one point in the season, Real Madrid were cruising towards the league title. Even before the second Clasico began, the Blancos were three points ahead of their arch-rivals with a game in hand. Winning the Clasico would have put them six ahead and still with a game in hand, meaning that the Whites would have needed only nine more points from the remaining six games to mathematically win the title.
Too easy, isn’t it? If only life was such, but it is not; Real Madrid led, bottled, rose again and bottled again to lose the Clasico 3-2 at the Bernabeu. The match was a Barca fans’ delight, but for Madrid and Madridistas, it exposed a lot of problems that were already becoming visible.
With this win, the momentum is with Barcelona as Madrid risk the danger of imploding from here and totally ruining their season altogether. Life is such an ever-changing entity that at one point, the Galacticos looked destined to win at least two trophies.
But now, they could end up the season with ‘nada’. Here, we take a look at the underlying problems of Zidane’s men that became apparent in the Clasico.
#1 Karim Benzema is done
Karim Benzema is one of the finest players to grace the pitch at the Bernabeu. The fact that he is in his 8th season with the club is a testament to his importance to the club’s history. Last season was his best in terms of scoring ratio as he finished the season with 28 goals from only 36 games.
This season, however, he has scored only 17 goals from 41 appearances – his third-worst season in term of scoring ratio with the club – but that’s not why he looks more of a liability than anything else.
The former Lyon starlet was never really known for his scoring instincts, it was rather his ability to get the best out of his team-mates – especially Cristiano Ronaldo – that made him an indispensable member of the team.
However, with Cristiano Ronaldo’s shifting positions and the resulting lack of movement on the left has hampered the Frenchman’s play-linking abilities. On his day, his feet becomes the fingers of Mozart and the ball his piano, and the pitch becomes the stage where he weaves masterpieces as the primordial architect.
But that Benzema can no longer be seen. These days, he is just a shadowing figure in the box that eliminates the space his team-mates could put to better use. Given that Benzema is 29, he is supposed to be having his best years as a striker, but that is a far cry from what is really happening.
And it is for this reason that Karim Benzema should no longer be a starter for the club if Real Madrid are to bask in glory come May.
#2 Casemiro is not the solution
For the majority of the season, the player that played the most important role in Real Madrid’s title surge was Casemiro. The Brazilian midfielder made the deep midfield his own zone and harassed anyone that tried to cross his path.
However, of late, it seems as though the vulnerability of playing the former Porto player has been figured out by the opponents as his form has declined quite dramatically over the past few weeks.
Any player with good ball control and dribbling ability is getting the better of the Brazilian – and Lionel Messi did just that in the Clasico.
The Brazilian was finding it difficult to contain the Argentine and was constantly making mistimed tackles. Indeed, like last week against Bayern, Casemiro was lucky to not see the red card in the first half itself and doom his team right from the early stages of the game.
Fortunately for Real Madrid, they already have someone who can challenge the Brazilian for the spot next season: Marcos Llorente. The Real Madrid youth product has been the best holding midfielder in Europe this season after Chelsea’s N’Golo Kante and should, ideally, replace Casemiro next season.
Whatever be the case, what can’t be argued is that, right now, Casemiro lacks the intelligence and positional awareness to be regarded as a successful holding midfielder like Claude Makelele or Gennaro Gattuso.
#3 Gareth Bale is too fragile to be Cristiano’s successor
This was perhaps already apparent, but the Clasico gave us the perfect image of it. It is a sad thing when the price tag of a player becomes the only merit on which he is selected in the team.
Gareth Bale was one of the 11 starters for Madrid in the Clasico, which was a baffling decision from Zinedine Zidane considering that he only just returned to training after recovering from an injury.
When you play a half-fit player in a match of this magnitude, you not only risk losing him early and wasting a substitution slot but also start with someone who almost certainly can’t cause any trouble to the opposition.
Given that speed in Bale’s only true strength, starting him half-fit never made any sense and Zidane had to pay for it. The Welshman was injured in the first half and had to be replaced by Marco Asensio, who should have probably started in the first place.
The image of Gareth Bale limping off after exerting himself from the ground revealed a dreaded truth: the Welshman can never be a proper replacement for the Portugal captain. He has already been out due to three injuries this season so far and only time will tell how long he will be out after yesterday’s knock.
With such a terrible relationship with fitness, it is impossible for the former Tottenham Hotspur player to reach the heights that the former Sporting starlet has enjoyed in his career—and it is Cristiano’s supreme fitness that allowed him to do so.
#4 Defensive woes
The defence was never really Real Madrid’s forte; their primary focus has always been to attack. However, 2017 has been dismal, so far, as the Blancos have only managed to keep five clean sheets in the 25 matches that they have played this year.
It is a telling testament to Real Madrid’s defensive afflictions that their best defender has been their fourth choice one: Nacho. This is not a dig at the Spaniard, who has been in great form this season and has always put in a good shift whenever he has played. However, the likes of Raphael Varane and Sergio Ramos have been dangerously inconsistent.
Ramos’ red card last night means that he won’t be available for the next two games and Pepe is out for the season with a rib injury. Raphael Varane has only just started training, which means that Nacho is the main man for the rest of the season.
While Nacho is an excellent defender who rarely puts in a foot wrong, Raphael’s Varane’s inconsistency and Ramos’ temperamental nature means that the Blancos are in a dire need of defenders. Fortunately for them, Jesus Vallejo—who is on loan at Frankfurt—is having a tremendous season in Germany and will more than likely feature for the Galacticos next season.
But before that, they have to finish this season—and it will be a very difficult task for them to achieve glory with the current state of the defence.
