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

5. Real Madrid players lack focus throughout the 90 minutes

To win a football match, you need to stay focused throughout the entire 90 minutes and it’s very important to maintain that high level of concentration during the game. One lapse of concentration can lead to some individual errors, which may, in turn, lead to some terrible consequences for the team.

But Real Madrid players haven’t done well in that aspect. The players have committed a lot of individual errors during many games, and those errors proved to very costly for the team. Let’s take a small example of the Supercopa de Espana semifinal vs Athletic Bilbao. Bilbao won the game 2-1, but both the goals they scored were due to 2 terrible mistakes from Lucas Vazquez, and those were enough for Real Madrid to get knocked out of the competition. It’s just a small example, and there have been many more such cases due to which Real Madrid dropped points in LaLiga and lost 2 games in UCL.

Sometimes the mistakes committed by players looked very minor. But those minor mistakes proved to be very costly. Not tracking a run near the halfway line, not recovering quickly during a counter-attack, not marking a player in the box, not pressing a player and many more rookie errors lead to a goal being conceded by the team. And sometimes an easy goal for the team wasn’t scored because of improper positioning from the players in attack, or a player not making a run and instead waiting for the ball to come at their feet at the place they were standing.

Such errors might seem very common, but for a top team like Real Madrid who look to compete in every competition available and are known to ‘mentality monsters’ for their ability to fight until the final minute of the game, these mistakes shouldn’t be too common. If Real Madrid don’t want to end the season trophyless, it’s important for the players to avoid such rookie errors and maintain focus throughout the game.