Thibaut Courtois admitted that Real Madrid just were not good enough in their derby loss to Atletico Madrid before the international break, in a recent interview.
There have been so many interviews from so many different Real Madrid players and managers talking about the game, and most of them have mentioned the fact that the referee in that game made terrible decisions. Those segments are true, but there was a lot more to that game than that.
Jose Mourinho once said that he was proud of his players because they left everything on the pitch. Soon after that, Kylian Mbappe also said that the players left everything on the pitch.
That may be true for the last 10-15 minutes of the game when Real Madrid actually tried to score goals, but the fact of the matter is they were not good enough for the majority of the match.
Thibaut Courtois talked about just that. He said, "We lost the Madrid derby because we were not good enough. We need to play better football. With that being said, I hope the referee and the VAR improve. It was not their best day.”
Thibaut Courtois always says the truth, which is the best thing about him
This is the statement Real Madrid fans were looking for from Mourinho, as well as from players like Mbappe.
Yes, the referee made some decisions which cost Real Madrid dearly, but Real Madrid also played terrible football during the match.
They created very, very few chances in the first half, and it wasn't until Bernardo Silva came on in the second half that they actually started looking like they wanted to win.
Real Madrid only had two good players on the day: Jude Bellingham and Courtois. Apart from them, the team struggled to do anything on the pitch. That is down to them being terrible, more than the referee being really bad.
The refereeing decisions would have helped Real Madrid if they were right, but if the performance that they gave in was even 40% better, the decisions would not have mattered too much. That is something that hopefully Mourinho is thinking about during the international break, and after that, he would work on it with the rest of the team.
If they keep focusing on these problems, Real Madrid will not go anywhere. They will be stuck in the same loop all the time, blaming things that are not in their control, unless they accept the fact that in most big games over the last three years, they just have not been good enough.
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