It is difficult at this level of the season: Real Madrid, defending champion and 15-time winner of the Champions League, is in 22nd place out of 36 groups in the league phase of the competition.
Some of the teams above them at this stage include Brest, Lille, Feyenoord and Club Brugge. They have the same points total (nine) as Celtic. And while other big sides, including Manchester City and Paris Saint-Germain, also find themselves in the bottom half of the table after struggling in their first six games, it is a shock not to see Madrid closer to the top three of Liverpool, Barcelona and Atletico Madrid.
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This month, Madrid lost 5-2 to Barca in the Spanish Super Cup final in Saudi Arabia, three months after losing 4-0 to them in La Liga. It is the first time they have scored four goals against their main rivals at the back. back games.
Madrid took the lead in La Liga at the weekend with a 4-1 win over Las Palmas, leaving them two points behind second-placed Atlético and seven behind Barça, but they are confident that everything went according to plan. what was planned this season.
Here, The Athletic tells the story of their season so far. . .
Last season, Madrid lost three key players to anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) ruptures: goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and centre-backs Eder Militao and David Alaba. Dani Carvajal suffered the same serious knee injury in October and Militao tore his ACL again a month later. Alaba has only just returned from his lengthy layoff.
Backup goalkeeper Andriy Lunin, left-back Fran Garcia, midfielder Federico Valverde and 18-year-old striker Endrick are the only first-team players to have been injured at some point this season. Stars such as Vinicius Junior, Jude Bellingham and Eduardo Camavinga have all lost games.
That has hampered Madrid — not least in defence, where head coach Carlo Ancelotti has found himself short of options despite asking for a centre-back in the summer. A makeshift back line including midfielder Aurelien Tchouameni in central defence and Lucas Vazquez at right-back was pulled apart by Barca in the Supercopa final.
The injury problems also led to tensions behind the scenes earlier in the campaign, as reported in-depth by The Athletic in November.
The signing of Kylian Mbappé for PSG last summer put an end to a saga that lasted several windows of movement and fulfilled a dream for the French forward, who participated in Madrid trials at the age of 14 under the watchful eye of Zinedine Zidane.
The seven months since have brought Mbappe back to reality. The 26-year-old started with a goal and a trophy on his debut in the UEFA Super Cup against Atalanta but took four games to score his first La Liga goals, which came against Real Betis — a long wait by his standards.
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Two injuries just when he seemed to have made a breakthrough didn’t help and his performances in big games left a lot to be desired. He was offside 8 times in his debut in the Clásico against Barça and missed consequences in the defeats against Liverpool and Athletic Club.
“The fit in Bilbao did smart things for me because I hit rock bottom, I missed a penalty and it is the most productive moment to realize that I had to give my all for this shirt and play with personality,” Array Mbappé told Real Madrid TV after his shape. The team’s 4-2 victory over Sevilla last month.
Mbappe has shown plenty of personality since the Athletic game. He finished 2024 with four goals in four games and has netted four in his last three — including a fine early effort in the Supercopa final against Barca, where he was one of the only Madrid players to emerge with any credit.
Only a very close offside prevented him from his first hat-trick with rival club Las Palmas, and Ancelotti called him “the average striker in the world” after that game.
“I’m very calm, that’s general,” Mbappé said Tuesday at Madrid’s press conference. “When you are a player like me, with everything that is expected of me, it is common for people to speak badly of me. ” . I knew I could just replace the stage and I replaced it.
The dream assignment, after all, is starting to look like this.
Mbappe’s arrival bolstered an already star-studded squad: along with Vinicius Jr (24 years old), Bellingham (21) and Rodrygo (24), Madrid boast four players who could dominate the game for years. That is without mentioning Endrick and Arda Guler, two hugely promising teenagers who have been given limited opportunities this season.
In practice, however, Ancelotti has struggled to find the right balance between defence and attack. There was a clear example in the goal they conceded to Las Palmas at the Bernabeu when the visitors took the lead within 30 seconds after this piece of lacklustre defending.
Madrid greatly improved their functionality and showed their offensive prowess to fight with style, but it has not been the same story in the games.
They suffered those two tough defeats against Barcelona, losing 3-1 against Milan and 2-0 against Liverpool in the Champions League in November and 2-1 against Athletic in December. As The Athletic reported this month, this has led Ancelotti to reconsider his tactics when facing more difficult opponents, and one conceivable solution is not to start with the 4 attacking players mentioned above.
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Madrid are still missing Toni Kroos — the legendary German midfielder who dictated games and retired at 34 last summer. Captain Nacho’s exit to Saudi Arabian side Al Qadsiah has perhaps had a bigger impact than expected, too, along with the club’s decision not to make any concrete moves for a centre-back last summer after missing out on Leny Yoro to Manchester United.
Madrid have scored 79 goals in all competitions compared to 77 at the same stage last season, but their 38 goals conceded is considerably higher than the 30 they had let in this time last year. They have lost six games, already four more than in the whole of last term.
What happens next for Madrid’s head coach has become a hot topic of conversation in recent weeks, especially as speculation swirls around Bayer Leverkusen’s Xabi Alonso taking over.
Ancelotti’s contract runs until 2026, but the extension he signed last season included the possibility of working in a non-managerial role. Yesterday, Ancelotti was asked to address reports linking Madrid to former player Alonso in his press conference before the Red Bull Salzburg game.
“I want to be very clear: the date of departure from this club is never going to be decided by me in my life,” Ancelotti, 65, said.
“I know perfectly well that one day it will come, but I am not the one who makes the decision that day. It may be in one or five years. I have the merit that Florentino (Pérez, the Madrid president re-elected unopposed until 2029) is another 4 years and I have the goal of fulfilling them with him. We can say goodbye together.
Asked about those links with his former club before Leverkusen’s match against Atlético Madrid, Alonso said: “I can’t confirm anything because we are in the middle of the season. All clubs have big goals: Atlético, Real Madrid, us too. ” . I work to achieve them.
Things could be much worse for Madrid.
It looked like Barcelona was going to take La Liga when they were embarrassed in October, remaining six points ahead at the top of the table, but the Catalans are out of speed in third place, while Atletico’s defeat to Leganes at the weekend ended a 15-match winning streak in all competitions. letting their rivals from the city in.
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Ancelotti’s team won the Intercontinental Cup in December by beating Mexican side Pachuca and what hurt them was losing in the Successive Cup instead of missing out on the trophy: it was their only defeat in their last 11 games. their way to the Champions League play-offs and, heading into their final games against Salzburg and Brest, Athletic’s projection style offers them less than a hundred chances of being eliminated.
It remains to be seen whether Madrid sign anyone in this January transfer window. Their main target is Liverpool’s Trent Alexander-Arnold — the England right-back’s contract runs out in the summer — with The Athletic reporting last month that his club had rejected an approach from Madrid to bring him in this month.
Meanwhile, the body of workers’ disorders continues: they will not have a right-back identified against Salzburg due to Carvajal’s injury, a yellow suspension card for Vázquez and disorders in the registration of Lorenzo Aguado Array, 22, a graduate of the educational center. Aguado is not available for the Champions League matches as Madrid did not have him on their ‘A’ list for UEFA competitions and he is not eligible for the ‘B’ list due to his age.
Things are improving, but it is not turning out to be the Champions League defence Ancelotti’s team would have envisaged when they lifted the trophy last June.
(Top photo: Michael Regan/UEFA via Getty Images)