Tactical Analysis: Decoding Real Madrid’s defensive flaws

Good or Bad, defending is about units, not individuals. Things will improve post-World Cup

This isn’t a mere reassurance of the squad being top quality, it’s simply what will happen on the other end of this winter break. The Merengues’ defence of the Champions League continues in February and the league will get ever more intense. The players will come back from Qatar bruised and battered physically but in the mindset to begin fresh and stick together as a unit.

Right now it simply is the opposite. As much as our players want to look forward to boarding the plane to Qatar fit and ready for a World Cup, it is undeniable the amount of fixtures that have piled up as a result of the stacked schedule. Without the fatigue holding them back, they likely wouldn’t even be having conversations like the one about the lack of synergy in pressing or keeping track of how many progressive passes the players make.

There exists no fast-track fix to all of Real Madrid’s defensive problems. It can look so complicated on days like this where the team concede three to lose but the narrative shifts and all is forgotten when they concede three in a winning cause. It can just be as simple as that on days where Ancelotti’s side outscore their rival. After all that is the aim of the game as a whole.

If there’s one thing I think all Madridistas can agree on, it’s that Real Madrid of all teams will be looking to get through their final game before the World Cup and come out of it unscathed.