Real Madrid nearly blew it. Although the team’s unreal Champions League “DNA” and the clutch factor of several key players carried the day, Los Blancos gave their fans some serious anxiety with how they played for most of the second leg at the Santiago Bernabeu against Chelsea. At one point, they were down 3-0 and 4-3 on aggregate, with two clutch, late goals from Rodrygo Goes (unforgettably assisted by Luka Modric) and Karim Benzema (niftily assisted by Vinicius Jr.) rescuing them in the end.
But you cannot help but wonder two things, specific to the lackluster defensive effort we saw that enabled Chelsea to put the tie at risk with three goals.
- How much worse would things have been without David Alaba?
- Would Real Madrid have conceded three goals with Eder Militao?
In giving Alaba an 8.5 out of 10 match rating for his unsung heroics in the second leg, I have already done my best to praise the Austrian center back. So I will shift the focus to a man who was not able to play in the second leg due to suspension, Eder Militao.
The 24-year-old center back was important to Real Madrid in the second half of the 2020/21 season when both Sergio Ramos and Raphael Varane went down with injuries. This season, he is a starter every week, and he has grown into an important player to Los Blancos. And one of the best center backs not just in LaLiga, but in Europe as a whole.
Eder Militao and David Alaba work best in combination
Without him on the pitch, we saw how valuable he is to Real and how much of a difference he makes. His unique combination of calmness and physicality were missed. Real Madrid were noticeably weaker in the box without him, and they were also less disciplined. Nacho Fernandez would step out when Alaba did, which led to Mason Mount’s momentum-shifting opener. It is a mistake Nacho has made multiple times this season, albeit earlier in the campaign in LaLiga.
Militao is Alaba’s normal partner. He usually sits back and enables Alaba to be the one who makes more of the plays on the ball. But if he does step up, he has more speed (and more awareness, despite being less experienced) to recover or not even take a risk he will pay for in the first place.
On top of all of this, Militao is a willing and capable long-passer. That matters against a team that is pressing, especially when the goal from an attacking perspective is to get the ball to the main outlet, Vinicius Jr., as quickly as possible. We’ve seen Militao change matches by picking out Vini with a long through ball across the field, including in the Champions League against Shakhtar Donetsk, for example.
In a short space of time, Militao has become a vital starter to Real Madrid. Most people rank players in terms of importance, and thus we don’t see Militao praised as much. Because, of course, people are going to rank big stars like Karim Benzema, Thibaut Courtois, Luka Modric, and Vinicius Jr. near the top.
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However, there are other starters who are important to Los Merengues, such as Militao. Real managed to survive without him, but only by the skin of their teeth. As we saw earlier this season against Real Sociedad, Militao is so good that he can provide a 10 out of 10, Man of the Match performance at center back. When you don’t have a player with that kind of star power at the back, you feel it. Hopefully, Madridistas learn not to take Militao for granted going forward.