Real Madrid missed a penalty, yet again. And it wasn't out of poor luck. I mean, Yassine Bounou is a brilliant goalkeeper, we know that. But I would like to take this credit from him here. It was simply an awful penalty from Fede Valverde. Too bad, as simple as that.
It had little power on it, and I don't mean to say that penalties with little power don't go in. There are penalties that are forced like bullets inside, and those that are cunningly placed. It was an attempt towards the former, and a god-awful attempt.
And this points towards something. In the past 19 chances they have got from the spot, Los Blancos have fumbled seven.
That means, on one awful average, Madrid are missing every third penalty they are being awarded. This is alarming. But it seems those meant to hear it are deafened.
Real Madrid have a big problem nobody is talking about
Missing seven out of 19 penalties is bad. Really bad. And the management needs to do something as soon as possible. It is late, but not too much. There’s more to this stat, and Marca have brilliantly summed it up.
There’s a shocking trend. Last season was not the only time the Merengues were awful on penalties. Even before that, the team did even worse. They missed four out of nine penalties — almost half. But this was not always the case.
From the 2018–19 season to the 2020–21 season, the team had a 100% conversion rate on penalties, thanks to seasoned penalty taker Sergio Ramos. But it trembled thereafter. In the following three seasons, the conversion rate started dwindling: 75%, 78%, and 56%.
So, what is the reason for this? The answer is simple: Real Madrid do not have a good penalty taker right now. Kylian Mbappé is good but not consistent. Vinícius is very poor. Luka Modrić, he’s decent, really. Not more. And I don’t even know why Valverde took it against Al Hilal.
The answer to this? Train someone, and train him dedicatedly. Doing penalty training with all is good, but you’ve got to focus a good amount on one person who is going to be the first choice always. Maybe a backup for cases of his absence, but concentration is necessary. You cannot have five different penalty takers, especially when no one is very good at it.