Real Madrid 3 – 0 APOEL FC: Champions League Match Review

Real kick started their defense for the UCL title with a victory over APOEL at home. Let’s take a look at how Zidane guided Ronaldo and co. to the win.

The Setup

As expected, Real Madrid were the dominant side. The gulf in class demanded that Los Blancos keep possession and control tempo. On the other hand, APOEL dropped deep and awaited for any chances to hit on the counter.

Zidane opted for his traditional tactics to build the attacks. Marcelo and Carvajal presented themselves on the wings as outlets to create width and throw crosses. Casemiro guarded the center backs and helped Kovacic and Modric work the ball through APOEL’s tight midfield.

The Croatian duo had several other tasks. They used their pace, dribbling ability and passing range to support and combine with the fullbacks. Furthermore, when team play failed, they used their skill set to dribble their way past APOEL’s midfield.

Freedom was the name of the game for Real’s forwards. The trio of Isco, Ronaldo, and Bale moved into space whenever it represented itself in the final third. The attacking trio also participated in the build up too. On regular basis they combined with the fullbacks. Moreover, one or even two of them dropped to the midfield to help the midfield in moving the ball forward.

Real’s first goal

Los Blancos primarily played a possession-based game. However, their first goal came from a counter. An error from The Royal Whites allowed APOEL to counter. The Cypriot team however failed to make the best of their chance. After the visitors’ counter failed, Real launched their counter attack.

Quick, direct passing landed the ball between Isco’s feet. The Spanish midfielder dribbled -as always- as if the ball is glued to his feet. The Spaniard ran a few meters with the ball and then passed it to Gareth Bale who was on the left flank. Bale gave a strong ground cross to Ronaldo, who in turn put it in the visitors’ net.

After the first goal, one would probably expect Real to slow down the rhythm and keep hold of the ball. However, it seems that after the first goal, Zidane’s orders were to kill the game as early as possible.

Impatience & the second goal

Ronaldo and co. simply didn’t settle for one goal, they wanted more. With Kroos subbed in due to Kovacic’s injury, Real had even better control of the tempo. The approach itself isn’t flawed. Killing the game early gives ease of mind to both the players and the manager. This allows for saving energy for the next match and lessens the chance of injury. What was problematic however was how Real executed their mindset on the pitch. The players were impatient.

Hastiness in the build up caused many wrong passes, especially in the final third. This in return fatigued the midfield and the defense. Nacho made a serious error in Real’s third that could’ve led to a goal had it not been for Sergio Ramos’s heroics.

This state of impatience continued until the end of the first half and for about 15 minutes into the second. Despite exhausting the players and making them concede possession, this strategy of high tempo did reap its benefits in the end. One of APOEL’s defenders touched the ball with his hand (according to the ref’s decision) in his team’s own penalty box. Penalty for Real Madrid.

Cristiano successfully scored the penalty and gave his team the second goal of the night. The goal lifted much of the pressure off the shoulders of Real’s players. a comeback from APOEL seemed very difficult at this point with Real creating most of the chances and less than 40 minutes remaining on the clock.

Ramos puts his touch on the match

The match seemed mostly dull for the Captain. The visitors rarely reached Real’s penalty box. Out of nowhere, Ramos popped in APOEL’s box to score a goal he’ll remember for eternity: an overhead kick.

One is left wondering whether Benzema is actually as good as Sergio at goal-scoring..

Anyway, with this goal, and about half an hour remaining on the clock, Real simply kept the ball for what remained of the match to ensure victory. Borja Mayoral and Dani Ceballos made their champions League debut which was nice to see. The only disappointing things from the match were that Kovacic was injured, Bale didn’t score, and Ronaldo didn’t score a hattrick.

Individual notes on certain players

We’ve already provided ratings for each player. Here I’ll only highlight the performances of certain players who caught my attention.

Kovacic

Kovacic unfortunately played only a handful of minutes due to injury. However, his impact was immediately felt once he was subbed out. Real lost some of its dynamism and instead focused more on maintaining the tempo and passing the ball to unmarked players.

Of course Kroos is currently the superior player overall. However what intrigues me is Kovacic’s impressive speed considering that he is a midfielder.

Zidane could really make use of that pace against teams that press high like Barcelona. With Kova’s pace, Real can easily defend with 9 players while at the same time be able to launch lightning-fast counter attacks. One of 4-5-1 ‘s main cons is that the team which plays it is left with one player upfront, so creating counter attacks isn’t as easy in that formation as 4-4-2. Kovacic’s fast legs can be a solution to this problem.

Bale

The Welsh Samurai has been under fire from Real’s fans lately. The fans anger is understandable given that the player was underwhelming in the preseason and failed to score in La Liga in the last couple of weeks when his team needed him most.

The assist to Ronaldo is a very good step forward. However, it’s not a big step. Bale was already an active player against Valencia last week and helped a lot in creating chances. Yet, he still has a problem with finishing them and this hasn’t improved against APOEL. Bale will once again be the focus of the attack when Real play against Soceidad. Since Los Blancos will be without Ronaldo due to the match ban and Benzema due to injury. Hopefully, the Soceidad match can be Bale’s return to being a goal threat as he once was.

Casemiro

The Brazilian’s offensive game has improved a lot since Real won La Undecima. Casemiro once again tried his infamous shot from distance. It never really went through APOEL’s defensive block but it was nice to see it as a regular weapon in Casemiro’s arsenal.

Furthermore, Casemiro seemed more confident with distributing and passing the ball. As I said earlier, he was pivotal in helping Modric and Kovacic/Kroos to move the ball through APOEL’s defenses. At the same time, he also maintained his strong defensive work rate without committing too many fouls.

Isco

It was very nice seeing Isco releasing the ball at the right time in buildup leading to Ronaldo’s first goal. He also let out a few through balls into the box although none of them created a clear cut chance on goal. Maybe it took The Spaniard some time, but it seems to me that he might be finally getting rid of the bad habit (keeping the ball for too much time) that’s keeping him away from being seriously considered as Balon D’or material.

Next: Kovacic will miss the next two months with a thigh injury

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