Real Madrid: Three players David Alaba helps the most
Toni Kroos
This is a very interesting one, and definitely something that not a lot of people are paying attention to. Kroos is one of the best passers of all time, pretty easily, and had the highest number of assists for any LaLiga player in 2021. But, this season, he’s been helped a lot by Alaba’s presence and press resistance.
Of course, these players know each other’s game and playing style from a while back because they played together for a few years at Bayern. It’s great to see how well they’re working together, and something that no one is realising is that these two are solving Real Madrid’s issues in building out from the back against teams that press high. I think we will see more of it if Real Madrid face a better pressing team.
Kroos and Alaba are excellent ball carriers, as they are very press resistant. We’ve seen them link up with each other to break through the press. Both of them know where the other one is going to be and it just works perfectly. Kroos knows that he can rely on Alaba’s passing range whenever he has to play it back to the defense, and he does that whenever required. Alaba, in turn, knows where Kroos is going to be whenever Real Madrid retrieve the ball from the opposition team, and he gets the ball to him in the hopes of starting a successful counter-attack.
These two players work on set-pieces together as well. I actually think that instead of Karim Benzema taking the direct free-kicks from near the box, it should be either David Alaba or Toni Kroos, depending on which side it is on.
Whenever Alaba becomes a makeshift left-back and pushes high up the field, Kroos is always there to find him on the overload, which leads to a few attacking opportunities for Real Madrid.
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Real Madrid have found themselves a fantastic player in David Alaba, and I’m sure that he will continue to make more on-field partnerships with other players as well, but I can certainly say that these three are thrilled to have the Austrian as their teammate.