Real Madrid: 5 things Carlo Ancelotti got horribly wrong in El Clasico

It was an absolutely atrocious display from Real Madrid in El Clasico as fierce rivals Barcelona ran rampant in the Santiago Bernabeu with an inch-perfect performance.

It finished 4-0 on the night to the visitors, and it was a match that was undoubtedly disheartening for every Madridista watching.

Barcelona wholeheartedly deserved the victory and to see how newly appointed manager and club legend Xavi has revitalized the Blaugrana in a short amount of time is simply impressive.

While Xavi will be receiving all of the plaudits for this match, one manager that will not be receiving that same treatment is Carlo Ancelotti.

The defeat to the Catalans was a disaster for the Madrid manager, and a whole host of the blame goes towards the Italian for the defeat as he got everything wrong on the night. With that being said, here are 5 things Ancelotti got horribly wrong in El Clasico.

The formation

If you were to ask any Madridista ahead of El Clasico what Madrid’s formation was going into the match, it would’ve been a question that Madridistas don’t even know the answer to.

It was purely a guessing game, and it took a while to understand how Ancelotti would field his eleven. Initially, a 4-4-2 with Vinicius and Rodrygo as the two strikers seemed the most probable, but it was still quite odd and questionable.

Eventually, La Liga recognized a 4-3-3 with Rodrygo as a striker and Vinicius and Fede Valverde flanked on either side as Madrid’s lineup, as the pre-match graphic proved it to be just that.

However, that was completely far from the actual lineup as it turned out to be a strange 4-2-4-0 formation in-game with virtually no striker in the setup.

This was shockingly strange, and for a manager of Ancelotti’s caliber to not even understand what kind of formation to use in one of the most crucial matches of the season is bizarre.

We even saw glimpses of Luka Modric operating as a center forward or false-nine and multiple defenders finding themselves in unfamiliar positions forward up the pitch. Players were genuinely taking turns playing in places, and the whole thing was a catastrophic laughable mess.

There was no structure to Madrid’s formation and no understanding on Ancelotti’s part of how to field his own eleven. It’s clear to see how poorly Karim Benzema’s absence has affected this team, and all it took was one piece of the puzzle to be removed for the whole thing to collapse.