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My Say: What Is Wrong With Real Madrid?

Ravichandra R analyses the present situation at the 'White House'...

25-Nov-2009 1:35:26 PM

Manuel Pellegrini, Raul, Real Madrid, Racing Santander (Getty Images)

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Manuel Pellegrini, Raul, Real Madrid, Racing Santander (Getty Images)

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Real Madrid

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Manuel Pellegrini

Institutionally there is a lot of interesting stuff about Real Madrid . However this write-up attempts to focus mainly on the footballing aspects and delve into institutional aspects where necessary.

Real Madrid fans are as demanding as they get. They are not interested in ‘just’ winning; they are not interested in ‘just’ scoring a lot of goals; the Bernabeu faithful believe in the spectacle and want to win in style. Play an expansive brand of football with lots of passing, wingers and fullbacks running up and down the wings, players who can take on defenders one-on-one and beat them with the step-overs and score lots of goals.

Florentino Perez, the man who presided over the original ‘Galactico’ era of 2002-2006 got elected unanimously as the president this year, his second term. Arch rival FC Barcelona have won an unprecedented treble of League, Cup and the Champions League. Florentino vowed to restore the pride of Real Madrid and elevate them to the top of European football where they rightfully belong. The last five years they have been eliminated in the round of 16 of the Champions League. Oh and there is the small matter that this year’s Champions League final will be played at the Bernabeu. The fans want the ‘decima’ (10th) Champions League title.

So they went ahead and bought a couple of Ballon d’Or winners in Ricardo Kaka and Cristiano Ronaldo. Add to that a highly rated young striker in Karim Bezema and a steady hand to control the midfield in Xabi Alonso and a couple of others, the team looks very strong on the paper and built to fight the two-pronged battle to win the League and the Champions League. Roughly 250 million Euros spent.

The Engineer To Direct Real Troops

Florentino tried to hire an established and a proven manager to direct the “Mega production” (as the Madrid sports media likes to call it). Arsene Wenger declined. Carlo Ancelotti had already agreed to terms with Chelsea. So they settled with Manuel Pellegrini, who took the modest Villarreal to #2 in the League + a Champions League semi-final and quarterfinal appearance in his five years at the club. Not only he got the results but he got them to play an attractive style of football with Spanish internationals Cazorla, Senna and Capdevila forming the backbone aided by the class players like Robert Pires and young Giuseppe Rossi.

One would assume, with all the world class players and a proven coach, things would fall in place fairly quickly. Nope. On the contrary, Madrid press as well as the upper management seems to at odds with Mr. Pellegrini and if they don’t win next week’s ‘clasico’ in Barcelona, it is widely rumoured he will lose his job. At this point you must be curious. What? Real Madrid who lead the Spanish League after 11 rounds have a coaching crisis brewing? Welcome to the reality at Real Madrid.

How did it come to this so quickly?

Firstly let us look into the past and understand Pellegrini’s system at Villarreal, and before that at River Plate. Pellegrini is a practitioner of what is known as “doble-cinco” (literally double 5, actually it means 2 players who play as #5 the defensive midfielder/orchestrator) or “doble-pivote” (double pivot) in the Spanish speaking world and generally falls in the category of 4-4-2, with some subtle nuances. The back-4 is pretty standard and the full backs have the liberty to go up-field. However the trick is in the middle, actually the middle is full of players. The second line of 4 often morphs into a two narrow lines of 2 each support two strikers upfront who are generally employed in the middle.

So the 4-4-2 morphs into a very narrow 4-2-2-2. This means

There is no width – limits 1-1 opportunities as well as makes it easier for zonal defending scheme by opposition.
Xabi Alonso and one of the Diarras are employed as the two midfielders. In a 4-2-2-2 they are employed very deep and by nature this is a narrow system. So they are very close to each other. This means Xabi Alonso doesn’t have a lot of space to string medium/long passes all he sees is Kaka and Ronaldo (or Raul) in front of him or Lass on the side. He doesn’t play in the same position as he played so effectively at Liverpool or with the Spanish national team.
Lack of counter-attacking opportunities and surprise element – as the system doesn’t employ pure wingers the congested middle doesn’t encourage counterattacking football either, this means the chance of springing a surprise is greatly reduced.
Too many players for the same position – the current squad is imbalanced with too many players best position being behind the strikers (the second ‘2’ line in 4-2-2-2). Kaka, Raul has the same favourite position. So if Raul plays (which happens almost always) Kaka plays out of position slightly to the left and by nature he always cuts inside which only adds to the congestion in the middle.
Lack of good fullbacks – Sergio Ramos is inconsistent and Marcelo cannot defend if he had to save his life. He is great going forward but that’s about it. They have started using him more as attacking midfielder on the left.

You may ask if the system is so bad, why they are scoring so many goals. And how did this work at Villarreal with lesser known players?

Two Of A Kind

If you look Madrid play, they score a lot of goals mostly on individual brilliance of Ronaldo, Kaka and sometimes Higuain or defensive errors of the opposition like Raul does so well. There is no rhythm. Even modest opponents like newly promoted Xerez and Tenerife have dominated possession and vast stretches of their games at the Bernabeu but in the end Madrid won these games comfortably because of the fire-power they have upfront in Cristiano Ronaldo, Kaka et al.

The other problem any recent Real Madrid coach has is the delicate topic of Raul. Whether to start him or using him as a substitute While Raul is an instinctive goal scorer, he doesn’t have the pace of yesteryears and his presence in the starting line-up slows down the entire attack of the Real Madrid making them more predictable and easier to defend. At the same time new signing Benzema seems to be taking a longer than expected to mature. (They should have signed David Villa instead of Benzema)

The Madrid fans don’t enjoy this. The Bernabeu faithful want the spectacle. Remember this is the same crowd that booed Zidane a few times during his playing days with the club. They want their team to play football different from how Barcelona plays as well as play beautiful and eye-pleasing brand of football.

This system worked well at Villarreal because of the personnel who adapted to the system and developed a squad of players who knew their roles. For example, home-grown players like Cazorla, Cani along with Pires regularly cut inside and go wide from their positions in the middle. Moreover it is easier to move around good players (not superstars) than asking the likes of Ronaldo or Kaka or Raul to adapt to a new position. I don’t think it is impossible but it will take more time to convince than for a regular player. Apart from that Villarreal also has players like Senna, Rossi and Capdevila who are much more suited to play in Pellegrini’s system than the likes of Xabi Alonso, Lass or Raul.

Pellegrini is the subject of a lot of criticism especially since the humiliating 4-0 loss to Alcorcon (a third division club) in the Kings Cup. The South American had the luxury of lack of huge expectations at Villarreal and the fact that he could mould players and make them adapt to his system. However he doesn’t have those luxuries at Real Madrid. He has to find a system where all his superstar players can operate from their favourite positions.

If this means relegating the talismanic Raul to the bench, he has to do it. Otherwise he will be on the job market before Christmas. We are three months into the season. 11 league games. Just one point separates FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Yet it seems as if Pellegrini has been a disaster so far. Sky-high expectations + a complete lack of patience and that precisely is the problem at Real Madrid.

Ravichandra R

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