Real Madrid played their best game against Salzburg in the Club World Cup on Thursday night, as they were 3-0 victorious in a display that showed growth and maturity on both ends of the pitch.
Real Madrid did not play as well in the second half as they did in the first, but they did enough to make it their best match of the Xabi Alonso era so far.
Real Madrid will obviously have a lot of things to improve on. That much is obvious, this is nowhere near the finish product. However, it is a good start.
Xabi Alonso likely to make a defensive call vs Juventus that says plenty
Real Madrid played a different system against Salzburg, sandwiching Aurelien Tchouameni with Dean Huijsen and Antonio Rudiger in defense. It worked, but they were missing Raul Asencio in the game.
However, according to AS, freshly healed Rudiger would still keep his place in the starting XI despite Asencio's return to the squad.
I guess it tells a fan a lot. It may not, we may be reading too much into it, but it tells one of three things.
One is that Asencio needs to learn that there is stiff competition in the squad, and that these sorts of mistakes will not be taken well by Alonso.
The second is that Alonso has decided that his two best centre-backs are Huijsen and Rudiger.
The third and final one could be that he does not want Asencio to play in a three-at-the-back formation for whatever reason. There is a bigger chance of the first two being true than the third.
However, it also could be that Real Madrid are just getting Rudiger into full fitness by playing him more and making him fit for games.
Let's also be fairly critical: after the two horrible performances that Asencio has had, Alonso would probably not want to play him in a knockout game where there is a lot on the line and the team is clearly better than the one he faced before.
No one knows what the reasoning is, but one thing is for sure: Asencio cannot make these mistakes again. He needs to step up before he is forced to sit on the bench.