#2 Real Madrid’s exemplary squad depth
When you can regularly keep the likes of James Rodriguez, Alvaro Morata and Marco Asensio on your bench, it says an awful lot about the talent and depth within your squad.
Zinedine Zidane enjoyed hitherto unheard of luxuries in 2016/17, even benching Cristiano Ronaldo on nine occasions.
If the Frenchman wanted to bring the subs on, there was very rarely a drop in quality, something that was hugely noticeable when Barcelona tried to do the same, particularly in the early stages of the campaign.
At the back end of the season, when Isco came into his own and Lucas Vazquez, Asensio and others all contributed, Real’s bench became known as the ‘Plan B’ but in actual fact, those players were as good as any they had replaced.
Luis Enrique had to make do with players who were either out of form or not playing with any confidence whatsoever – a marked difference.
