Three takeaways from Real Madrid’s UEFA Super Cup victory

After a woeful preseason tour, Real Madrid were able to defeat Manchester United 2-1 Tuesday night in Macedonia to win their second consecutive UEFA Super Cup title. Here are three takeaways from the first official competitive match of the 2017-2018 campaign.

The midfield is still dominant

Like clockwork, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, and Casemiro did what they always do. Dominant.

From the first whistle to the final whistle, the trio, who now have a year of experience playing with each other, controlled the match. United’s best midfielders Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, and Ander Herrera were totally absent the entire match due to the incredible passing and suffocating defense from Real’s world-class midfielders.

Casemiro again proved to everyone that he isn’t just a center defensive midfielder, but he can attack and score just like other central and attacking midfielders. After heading a corner kick off the crossbar, the Brazilian came back and made a fantastic run to score the opening goal of the match, placing his foot right in the path of a great over the top ball from Dani Carvajal.

Casemiro scored two incredible goals during Real’s ’16/’17 campaign and he can add this goal in the Super Cup to that running list.

The man himself, Toni Kroos, was doing what we have grown so accustomed to seeing week in and week out, passing the ball with incredible precision. The German international completed 96% of his passes and was directing his teammates around the pitch like he was the quarterback of the squad.

Luka did a great job frustrating newly acquired midfielder, Nemanja Matic, running past the big player a few times and causing a headache for former Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho.

According to WhoScored, Casemiro earned the highest rating of any player with an 8.7 out of 10, followed closely by Toni Kroos who finished with a 7.2. Modric was the lowest of the midfield trio finishing with a solid 6.5 rating.

Isco is unstoppable

He may not be the fastest or the tallest, but no one can stop ‘the bandy-legged bandit’ Isco. After bursting onto the scene in ’16/’17, Isco Alacrón picked up right where he left off in the first competitive match of the new campaign.

The natural center attacking midfielder was moved to the left wing by manager Zinedine Zidane to begin the match, however, as the match progressed, the versatile Isco dropped in behind Benzema and Gareth Bale to his natural position and picked the Manchester United midfield and defense apart with his precise dribbles, and seamless passes.

Even with the likes of Pogba, Valencia, and Smalling jostling him while on the ball, the Spaniard never seemed rattled and continued to carve the United 3-5-2 hybrid formation apart throughout the entire 73 minutes he played.

The goal from Isco was a thing of beauty as well, as the 25-year-old perfectly executed a give and go with Gareth Bale on the edge of the box to put Los Blancos up by two.

Even though he received a lower match rating than Casemiro on WhoScored, Isco was awarded the player of the match thanks to his match sealing goal just minutes into the second half.

What makes Isco even more impressive is what he’s done over the last 10 games, as he’s been directly involved in 9 goals (6 goals, 3 assists), this according to Squawka. Manchester United were a formidable defense, but they were no problem for the beast Isco.

Can anyone stop this man from creating? Doesn’t look like it.

Zinedine Zidane is killing the game, humbly

Do you know why he’s smiling? Because all he does is win trophies.

Zinedine Zidane has now led Real Madrid to six titles in under two years. He’s simply in a world of his own at this point.

While a lot of the credit for this incredible run of success has been heaped on the players (rightfully so) Zidane deserves as much, if not more, of that credit. Two Champions League titles, two UEFA Super Cup titles, a LaLiga title, and a FIFA Club World Cup title in the span of about 20 months is totally unheard of.

All this success would go to anyone’s head, right? Not Zidane. The former Real player and French international has remained calm, cool, and focused throughout this historic run and has his team hungry for more.

“We know we’ve got a lot of talent and that with hard work we can achieve great things,” he said in his post-game press conference. “We’re very hungry, we always want more.”

“It was a near perfect performance. The first half was fantastic and then we struggled a bit at the end of the second. If we’d have got the third goal, that would have been it. We showed great character and hunger.”

There is hardly any time for Real Madrid to celebrate the triumph, as the team will head back to Spain and begin preparing for FC Barcelona in the Spanish Super Cup on Sunday. Zizou is well aware of what lies ahead.

“We know that every game will be more difficult and we’ll come up against very good opposition throughout the season.”

“We want to give it our all and we’ve got the ambition to do better and better. Today was no comparison with the pre-season games. We were on it from the first minute to the last.”

Next: Toni Kroos, as valuable to Real Madrid as Cristiano Ronaldo

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