First Impressions of Real Madrid and the Second Galacticos Era

Together for the moment

The much-anticipated return of La Liga began with a scin­til­lat­ing match between the new galác­ti­cos of Real Madrid and the pesky Deportivo La Coruña, who always gives Madrid a run for their money, lit­er­ally.  Because of the con­tin­ued sus­pen­sion of Pepe and the ten­dini­tis suf­fered by Ser­gio Ramos, the Real Madrid defense was not at full strength, and Eze­quiel Garay and Álvaro Arbe­loa started in their posi­tions respec­tively.  All of Madrid’s big sign­ings started, and they began in a fluid 4–2-3–1 for­ma­tion with Lass and Xabi Alonso in cen­tral mid­field and in front of the back four, Cris­tiano Ronaldo on the right of the three, Raúl on the left, and Kaká roam­ing in the mid­dle behind the striker Karim Benzema.

Early in the match, Madrid played ten­ta­tively as expected, try­ing to fig­ure the best strat­egy to incor­po­rate the strengths of the new play­ers.  They cre­ated a plethora of chances but did not con­struct the deci­sive pass to gen­er­ate a gen­uine goal-scoring oppor­tu­nity.  Then the magic mate­ri­al­ized that los madridis­tas expected since the for­ma­tion of this sec­ond galác­tico team.

In the 26th minute, on another attack­ing sit­u­a­tion, Kaká‘s vision and audac­ity came to fruition.  Cut­ting inside towards the “D,” Kaká sensed the diag­o­nal run of Karim Ben­zema and slot­ted a pass to him that trav­eled first between Pablo Álvarez’s legs, then between Juan Rodríguez’s legs to spot Karim Ben­zema.  Ben­zema then fired his shot first time, split through goal­keeper Daniel Aranzubía’s legs, and hit the post; Raúl cleaned up the rebound, and it was 1–0 Real Madrid.  It was debat­able whether Ben­zema was onside when Kaká played his through ball to him, but nev­er­the­less, that was why Flo­rentino Pérez sought out these world-class play­ers: for this kind of inge­nu­ity and flair.

No sooner than four min­utes later did Depor expose Real Madrid’s defense with a train­ing ground free kick rou­tine.  Depor caught Madrid sleep­ing, and Riki headed home the equal­izer.  Madrid gave both Riki and Alberto Lopo an ample amount of space, and Riki ended up scor­ing, but to have two play­ers so open from a rel­a­tively short free kick was inexcusable.

Real Madrid scored five min­utes later on a penalty by Cris­tiano Ronaldo.  Lass made another deci­sive pass into the box for Raúl, and Aranzubía felled Raúl whilst try­ing to take the ball off his foot.  Ronaldo took the penalty with his famous stut­ter step and beat Aranzubía to retake the lead 2–1.  Ronaldo then showed his panache a minute later when he did a series of step-overs, breezed by the defender, and crossed a beau­ti­ful ball to Raúl in the box.  Unfor­tu­nately, for Real, Raúl’s shot went straight into Aranzubía’s stom­ach, but Ronaldo’s indi­vid­ual bril­liance lit up the Bern­abéu yet again.

The com­bi­na­tion of Lass and Xabi Alonso con­trolled the mid­field, akin to their rivals Andrés Ini­esta and Xavi Hernán­dez at Barcelona, and they were able to keep pos­ses­sion and take pos­ses­sion back when­ever Madrid lost the ball.  These two hold the key to unlock­ing oppos­ing defenses; if they dic­tate the mid­dle of the park, the front line will be able to be free to set up their one-two’s and other intri­cate positions.

The Real Madrid defense was caught ball watch­ing in the first minute of the sec­ond half.  Andrés Guardado worked the left flank and crossed to Juan Car­los Valerón, where he had the abil­ity to con­trol the cross, take the shot, and score from the top of the penalty box.  No one was close enough to Valerón, and even when Eze­quiel Garay attempted to close down Valerón’s shot, it was only in vain as Valerón blasted his shot passed a frozen Iker Casil­las.  Garay and Raúl Albiol did not have the chem­istry required for a cen­tral defen­sive pair, and that was the kind of sit­u­a­tion where Madrid missed the calm and posi­tion­ing of Pepe.

Real almost gave up a third goal in the 57th minute when Guardado again paced down the left wing and sent a heav­enly ball to Valerón.  Valerón sliced through the cen­ter of the defense again but inex­plic­a­bly sent his shot wide of the post.  Casil­las had no chance, and from the six-yard box, it was harder to miss than to score, but some­how, Valerón man­aged to do so.  Depor paid for their missed golden chance when Lass scored three min­utes later from just out­side the “D”.

The final was 3–2 in favor of Real Madrid, and each of the new play­ers had their dis­tinct moments of skill.  Their defense needs major improve­ment, and maybe when Pepe and Ser­gio Ramos return, these defen­sive gaffes will not occur as often.  The sta­tis­tics sug­gest that Madrid dom­i­nated the match with 59% of the pos­ses­sion, twenty-eight shots with eleven on goal, and ten cor­ner kicks to Depor’s three.  When watch­ing the match, there was always a feel­ing that Deportivo La Coruña could get a draw or even win.

Real is def­i­nitely still a work in progress, and it will take more than one match to develop the chem­istry needed to gel as a unit.  Offense was not the prob­lem last year, and they will likely sur­pass the eighty-three goals they scored in the prior sea­son; how­ever, they can­not expect to outscore teams on every occa­sion.  Ben­zema, Ronaldo, Kaká, Xabi Alonso, et al. will not be the prob­lems.  If the back line con­tin­ues to leak goals as if it were the Exxon Valdez, Real Madrid will not win La Liga or any other com­pe­ti­tion this campaign.

Tagged as: andres guardado, Cristiano Ronaldo, deportivo la coruna, Galacticos, Iker Casillas, juan carlos valeron, Kaka, karim benzema, La Liga, lassana diarra, Raúl, raul albiol, real madrid, riki, Xabi Alonso