5 players Real Madrid cannot afford to lose under any circumstances

Thibaut Courtois

Speaking of saviors…

Perhaps the only player here who is close to his 30s, Courtois has been on an absolute tear this season. Well, he’s been on a tear since 2019-20, but it’s a shame no one gives him his flowers. The thing that’s different this season is that even though Courtois was fantastic in the last two seasons, the defense held its own just as well. This season, it’s really been more about individual brilliance in the defense rather than simply a good defensive system, and it sometimes hurts the team.

But it would hurt the team a lot more if Courtois wasn’t a Real Madrid player. I know the casual Premier League fans reading this won’t agree with what I’m going to say, but Courtois is the best goalkeeper in the world, and he has been that way for the better part of the last three years. There’s absolutely nothing you can do to prove me wrong.

If you’re the kind of person that stopped watching him after he got into his slump in 2018-19, then all you need to do is watch the game against PSG. Real Madrid were terrible, and Courtois did all he could to keep the score respectable. The 1-0 scoreline isn’t quite reflective of how it went down in the French capital, but what it showed us was that Courtois is too important to this team, and they’d be in a much worse position if it wasn’t for the Belgian.

There are many brilliant goalkeepers in the world, there’s no doubt about that. But after watching this man make one save after another every single time the team needs him, there’s only one thing I have to say about the situation: Courtois is simply too damn good, and letting him go would be a grave mistake.