Real Madrid: 5 takeaways from the 2020/21 season so far

4. The revolution hasn’t begun yet

Real Madrid have changed their transfer policy in recent years and prioritised the signings of young and coming talents more than the signings of established players. They brought the likes of Luka Jovic, Martin Odegaard, Eder Militao, Vinicius Jr, Rodrygo Goes, and Ferland Mendy to the Spanish Capital, and there were a lot of expectations on these players.

With an aging core in the middle, people expected to see these players being integrated into Real Madrid’s starting XI, but that never really happened in the case of most of these players. Only Ferland Mendy has been able to break into Real Madrid’s starting XI, and he had already achieved that objective in the last season itself.

These youngsters never really got minutes consistently, and most of them had a stop-start season. Zinedine Zidane can be blamed for the way he treated them, but there are some other factors we need to consider here. Few players struggled to maintain their fitness and the senior players playing in the positions of some of these players have been playing at an elite level. Some of them couldn’t get minutes due to some unfortunate and high-pressure circumstances, but the under usage of some players definitely didn’t look right because they could’ve made a difference.

Some of these players didn’t really impress the manager in the limited opportunities they got and often looked out of sorts and low on confidence. It is a concerning thing because it’s important to maintain the morale of the youngsters and focus on their improvement, which hasn’t really been visible in Real Madrid’s youth. It does show that the manager has definitely failed in the way he dealt with his youngsters.