Girona 1-4 Real Madrid: 5 talking points

#3 Real Madrid find their feet in the second-half

Given the atrocious performance during the first 45 minutes, the visitors desperately needed a team-talk during the interval and regroup for the second stanza. Both check and check, on the evidence of much-improved half. The problematic 4-2-3-1 wasn't just discarded blindly by Lopetegui, but he chose to tweak it a bit by taking off the ridiculously out-of-sorts Marcelo at the hour mark and introduce Varane with Nacho shunting out to the left.

This definitely made them defensively more sound and allowed them to get control on the ball and move forward. With Benzema having already put the side ahead with another penalty, Los Blancos now attained complete supremacy of the game. They held the ball high up the field as the pressing got more rigorous than ever. With Benzema dropping back in between the lines and Isco pushing ahead, it resembled an attacking triangle that was easy on the eye.

His hawk eye-like vision saw him then release Bale with a defence-splitting pass and the Welshman put the game beyond doubt. By now, the Girondists had the stuffing knocked out of them and ended up conceding another one just 10 minutes from time. The Whites found their feet in the second half to paper over the cracks shown in the first, but need to play like this throughout the course of 90 minutes to avoid embarrassments against bigger oppositions.