Real Madrid suffered a humbling defeat at the Benito Villamarin, one of the toughest places to play in LaLiga, as former midfielder Isco and Real Betis dismantled them 2-1 in a game that never felt close, even though Los Merengues actually drew first blood early in the match.
At no point in the game were Real Madrid in control of the proceedings. Their talented front three was almost completely starved of chances, as the midfield did precious little to progress the ball. The four men behind them in defense were also functionally useless, the fullbacks failing to get forward on the ball and the center backs frustratingly stifled with their reading of the game and quality of passing.
Real Madrid knew they were going to be in for a tough afternoon on the road against LaLiga's seventh-best team without the talented midfield trio of Jude Bellingham, Fede Valverde, and the recently injured Dani Ceballos, but not even the most cynical Madridista could have predicted how thoroughly dominated they were by the Real Betis midfield on Saturday.
Real Madrid's best backups should be better than other starters
Yes, losing players the caliber and skill-set of Bellingham, Valverde, and Ceballos was always going to hurt, but while Betis is a good team, they aren't a great team. That is to say, you'd expect that a club with Real Madrid's quality would still have three other great midfielders in their squad capable of beating a seventh-placed team like Betis, even without their own three best midfielders.
Real Madrid should have enough depth to where their first-choice backups would individually be the best midfielder on any other team in LaLiga outside the "Big Three". So their starters - Luka Modric, Aurelien Tchouameni, and Brahim Diaz - should each be better than each of the three midfielders on Real Betis.
And when you look at the cost of each player and the fact that Betis's best midfielder, Isco, was literally discarded by Real Madrid a couple of years ago for not being good enough to make the squad at all, you have to agree that this should have been the case.
The fact that Modric, Brahim, Tchouameni, and, later, Eduardo Camavinga all failed so miserably against Isco, Johnny Cardoso, and Sergi Altimira is a telling sign that the midfield depth that Real Madrid have isn't great. It's not bad, but it's not nearly at the standard Madrid have set for themselves over the years, and in the post-Toni Kroos era, it is a sobering reminder that Real don't have controllers in the middle of the park.
Bellingham, Ceballos, and Valverde are the best engines and creators in Madrid now that Modric, while still good, is declining. Without them, Real are left with Modric scrambling to do all the work, given it's hard to trust Camavinga and Tchouameni in conductor roles, while Brahim is a miscast forward in midfield.
This loss to Real Betis only increases the cries from a segment of Real Madrid fans who believe one more midfielder of the Martin Zubimendi or Joshua Kimmich archetype is needed.