Real Madrid have shown two faces at the start of the season, looking like completely different teams at the Santiago Bernabéu and on their travels. At home they are powerful and clinical in attack. Away, defensive lapses and individual errors creep in and cause concern.
According to Spanish newspaper "AS", Real Madrid are capable of being a hurricane, or merely strong but bearable tropical rain as far as their opponents are concerned.
The attacking strength is enormous. But the lapses in defence go beyond the back four and become the responsibility of the whole group.
Baring the fangs of a sabre-toothed tiger, the team still tend to leave themselves exposed in the heat of battle, perhaps because of overconfidence.
Two faces, then, and a decisiveness that matches the reality of a team still under construction. They are a fearsome machine, but one that needs a few nuts tightened, which is why they appear incomplete.
Nothing has stood out more in the opening rounds than the gulf between home and away. A drop in level away from your fortress is possible in football, something usual and logical.
Mourinho's men present a completely different picture at their opponents' grounds. Real Madrid scored four goals against both Real Sociedad and Malaga, two big wins that came easily and boosted their self-confidence in the form of a festival of goals.
It is not just about the goals. There are other figures too. At the Santiago Bernabéu, Real Madrid average 10 shots on target and concede only two.
The other face
Away from home the story changes completely. The opening league match, at the Cornellà-El Prat stadium, reached a great degree of difficulty because their dominance was not reflected on the pitch in the same way.
Real Madrid seemed to hold the advantage against Espanyol, yet they suffered a great deal to secure the win. The team managed a third fewer shots, seven between the posts and the crossbar, and scored six goals fewer.
Their attacking effectiveness drops away from home, especially after they failed to score at the La Cartuja stadium, which is exceptional. Real Madrid had failed to score in only one of their last 24 matches, and that was against Barcelona in the Clasico on 10 May.
They also concede double the number of shots away from home compared with their own ground, at four shots per match.
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Defensive lapses
The analysis of those two faces extends to the defensive lapses, because that is exactly what they are: lapses and errors that could have been avoided, which is why they hurt twice as much.
Against Espanyol, the goal came from a lack of coordination between Valverde, who bears the greatest responsibility, and the defensive line while marking Calatrava.
The goal against Real Sociedad followed a series of indecisive errors from Konaté and Carreras in stopping the counter-attack. Yesterday's goal at the La Cartuja stadium came from an error by Valverde after he lost track of the ball on the rebound from a corner.
None of this stems from a tactical flaw, nor does it mean the team is poorly built. These are individual errors that pass unnoticed in the context of big wins, but they become especially painful when the results are close.
Concern grows all the same, especially ahead of upcoming matches that allow no room for mistakes, because committing them could bring the team down. They are nuts that need tightening, and electrical sparks in the wires of a machine still under construction.
Fresh and tired
The Royal club know the taste of defeat and decline. Mourinho put it sarcastically during pre-season, saying the team in fact have three faces: "fresh, tired, and very tired".
In time, the coach managed to shed the last version, which is natural after getting through the preparation period and reaping the fruits of the physical work. Yet the "tired" features still appear on Real Madrid and on specific names, chief among them Bellingham, an inevitable reflection of his late arrival to pre-season after the World Cup with England. His physical fuel runs out from the 70th minute, which inevitably drops the team's tempo.
These current details suggest there is no need to sound the alarm, but they reveal a project that has not yet reached its peak and needs to keep building.
Real Madrid show ferocious strength in attack and create a huge number of chances. The absence of defensive focus causes some noise, laying bare their two contradictory faces: the Santiago Bernabéu, where they score four goals, and away from home, where they have scored only two, right up to their failure to score last night. The fearsome machine still needs its nuts tightened. It remains incomplete.
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