Real Madrid suffered a shocking defeat at the Ciutat de Valencia on Saturday night, falling 1-0 to Levante after a wonder goal from Jose Luis Morales Nogales. Here are five players who must step up for Los Blancos before Wednesday’s high-stakes match against Manchester City.
Whereas Manchester City got the job done, via young striker Gabriel Jesus, in a key Saturday afternoon match against Leicester City, Real Madrid dropped more points in the title race.
A week after drawing with Celta Vigo, Real lost to Levante 1-0 in a game they should have won handily, based on the chances they were creating. But Real failed to finish, made a small error defensively that was punished emphatically, and may have lost the recently-returned Eden Hazard to injury.
In light of Lionel Messi‘s four-goal haul in a 5-0 win over Eibar and with El Clasico looming, Real Madrid need a bounce-back win on Wednesday in the Champions League against City. Here are five players who must step up after the loss to Levante.
RB Dani Carvajal
Dani Carvajal pushed up the pitch so frequently against Levante that Luka Modric needed to be the one to cover for him at right back. This predictably had disastrous outcomes, especially since Raphael Varane was roaming centrally and higher up the pitch to quickly win the ball back with Real in desperate search of a goal.
This ended up hurting Real Madrid, as a ball down the right side of their defense led to Levante’s screamer and eventual winner.
While the goal was more of a tactical error than one on the part of Carvajal, his forays up the pitch were all for naught. The star right back looked anything other than one of the world’s best on Saturday. None of his seven crosses were accurate. Against Raheem Sterling and City, Carvajal will need to be better on both ends of the pitch.