Casemiro is becoming the core of a dominant Real Madrid team

The making of Casemiro has taken a few years but the product is promising

Voted as the greatest club of the 20th century, Los Blancos are perhaps the most prominent image of club football. And it’s not just for footballing reasons. At the turn of the century, Florentino Perez took over reins at the Madrid club by becoming its president. Since then, the Whites have boosted their name as a brand.

Stars like Luis Figo, David Beckham, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka have worn the shirt under the construction magnate’s presidency, further escalating their name in the world of allure.

However, there’s always been a qualm with Perez’s leadership — that the defensive players aren’t given much heed and more preference is given to flashy players that get the crowd going.

A look at Real Madrid’s signings under him gives a perfect testament to that. A lot of money has been spent on extravagant forwards and midfielders, but not so much when the numbers beside the defenders’ prices are brought up.

No place at Real Madrid for defensive players

One of the biggest transfer hokum under Perez was his decision to let go of French defensive midfielder Claude Makelele because he could only “pass 5 yards backwards or sideways.” Real Madrid’s trophy stats after his departure took a massive fall and the club could never really find a suitable dynamic replacement all these years. Until now.

As the transfer window slammed shut, Matteo Kovacic’s signing was being lauded, as the Croatian was touted as the apt answer to the club’s midfield conundrum that proved to be the killer blow in the season’s run-in under Carlo Ancelotti last season. Luka Modric was injured and Toni Kroos fatigued, leaving Los Merengues painfully short and out-of-depth in the midfield department.

One of Europe’s most promising players Mateo Kovacic was brought in to fill a midfield gap

But it is November now and Kovacic has been among those players who have rarely featured in Rafa’s revolution. It’s not that he never got a chance and that he didn’t take it when it was presented. In fact, the Croat was sublime every time he played, displaying why he is regarded by many as one of the brightest talents in world football.

However, his presence alongside Luka Modric and Toni Kroos does make the system a bit weak against the physically strong teams and hence, as a result, a more robust player in midfield became the ask of the hour.

Enter Carlos Henrique, better known as Casemiro. Not many people were convinced by his signing for the Castilla team as he seemed like a somewhat troubled talent. He blasted to the scene with bags of potential, but constant attitude problems made him fall like he rose.

The growth of Casemiro

Sao Paulo deemed it better to ship him off to Spain than to keep him and nurture his talent. The move didn’t make much sense in the retrospect. Two years later, however, he is on his way to become a crucial part of the Benitez’s defensively solid and stable system.

After a season with the Castilla, one could see his hunger to play for the first team. He realized the magnitude of honour playing for a club like Real Madrid and worked his socks off to impress the hierarchy. Then a season on loan with Porto beckoned and he absolutely broke through the big stage with some astute performances for the Portuguese club, showing that he might as well go on to fulfill his potential after all.

Right now, given the way he is playing and Rafa Benitez’s tactical style of building a defensively sound team, it seems very much like he will become a permanent fixture in his manager’s plans.

Casemiro was retained at Real this seaosn after a splendid year with Porto on loan

Whenever he has played, a phenomenal display of power and grit was there to be seen. He knows when to commit himself to press forward and when to stand back and shield instead. Rarely has an opponent gone straight past him as the best they could do is either pass the ball backwards or sideways.

Also, his presence allows Marcelo the complete freedom to attack without compensating the team’s backline to such a dangerous extent as he has done a great job covering for him. And the effect can be seen; the Brazilian has had a terrific start — perhaps his best ever with the club — to the campaign

His hustling approach dismantles the opposition’s attacks on a regular basis and it is of little wonder why the Galacticos have conceded only 3 goals with him on the field and 4 overall, which is a massive improvement considering they conceded more than a dozen of goals by this time last season.

Stats Table: all stats are presented on a per-game basis

	Tackles	Interception	Blocks	Clearances	Long-balls	Passes	Pass success rate
Casemiro	3.4	2.7	0.5	1.6	6.6	50.6	85.2%
Xabi Alonso	2.3	1.3	0.2	1.3	4.3	88.4	90.8%
Schweinsteiger	1.6	1.4	0.2	1.1	3.8	57.9	86.3%
Matic	3.2	2	0.1	1.6	1.6	44.6	87.1%
Busquets	2.6	2.2	0.2	0.7	4	60.6	89.7%

As the table above demonstrates, Casemiro has fared much better than the rest of the defensive midfielders when it comes to the pure holding part of the game. The astonishing bit, as you can see, is the fact that Casemiro has made more successful long balls-per-game than the iconic Xabi Alonso.

His short-passing, however, has been decent at very best, but setting the tempo of the game by spraying possession isn’t his job anyway; that responsibility lies on the able shoulders of Toni Kroos and Luka Modric.

So far, he has proven himself to be an able successor to Xabi Alonso’s number 14, even though they are completely different types of players — however, he is bettering even Xabi Alonso when it comes to hindering the opposition’s movements.

With Rafa Benitez’s fondness for a rigid rearguard, one can be almost certain that Casemiro will feature a lot as the season progresses. He may have had a below-average game against PSG last night at the Bernabeu, but that doesn’t change the fact that he has had an incredible start to the season and has made a strong claim to be a starter — and his powerful performance in the previous leg against PSG at Paris shows just that.