We are
in December, almost a year since the pandemic has started and many lives
affected. Something that has not been different from last December at this time,
is Real Madrid (RM) football. In fact has actually gotten worse if not stayed
the same. It has been a while since I wrote something here and wanted to use
this opportunity to talk about what has been literally frustrating for me as a
fan. So, this post will be very football focused.
Let's
start at the beginning for me, the beginning was when Zinedine Zidane (ZZ)
resigned on May 31st 2018. A series of events forced him out and among those
that I have identified myself without being part of these conversations and
based on articles and observations are:
·
The squad had run its course and
could not get higher than they had been: Champions league repeat which has
never been done in the modern era of football
·
Florentino Perez's refusal to sell
Bale and keep Cristiano Ronaldo
·
The refusal of the board to provide
players needed to inject the new blood in the team for it to continue to be
competitive.
For
those who are fans, you already know what then unfolded: a series of poor
performances and humiliations that were not worthy of this club. But in the
midst of all that, ZZ came back, he came back less than a year after leaving,
on March 11th 2019. The reasons he came back are numerous, amongst them, his
eternal love for the Merengues. There were demands that he made on coming back,
the most important ones: the signing of key players namely Hazard, Pogba and
Mbappe. He only has gotten Hazard out of the 3 and the board, and Florentino at
the helm, has literally not delivered and the justification they give is
simple. The goal of the board is to get Real Madrid healthy financially while
making upgrades to the stadium, so the influx of new talents has been literally
stopped for 3 years (if we go back as far as the ban received from FIFA for
signing under-age players). The focus has been in looking for the newest
un-polished talent around the world, mainly in Brazil (as Florentino has had an
obsession with Brazilians since the club missed on signing Neymar). They have
developed one of if not the biggest network of scouts that scrapes the face of
the earth to find the new shiny young talents that they intend to develop
through Castilla or via loans. The idea is for them to become great and
contribute to the first team right away or be sold to bring some money to club
coffers. But a key element of this plan has completely been ignored whether
willfully or not: the expectation that RM has to win; and win no matter what is
going on as fans expect the team to perform. Or at least try and show
commitment to win which they did by winning the last season, thanks to the
virus as it allowed the team to rest and focus on the last 11 games. So why is
RM struggling, below I will try to provide my personal thoughts/analysis on the
reasons.
·
The roster
This
team has been needing some fresh blood for a while; fresh blood in the sense of
getting experienced players that could directly contribute, not via teenagers
as they have done. These kids cannot be expected to perform and deliver for
what is the pinnacle of football. This club has crazy demands, each game is a
final and is treated as such by the fans and what have we seen? Half of our
legendary back line is on the wrong side of 30 with only one still carrying the
team in Ramos while Marcelo has been a shell of his former self. It is sad for
me to see him performing so poorly and he should have left 2 years ago and the
time of Lopetegui and Solari proved that he was not at the level. This begs the
question of the players we developed and sold. The case of Reguilon first who could have been of such
help for this team right now, especially
due to the tactical setup that requires the full backs to provide the width and
are the main providers of crosses in the area. There is also the poor level of
performance of the other half, we have Varane who have been in RM for 10 years
but cannot for his own sake perform as an insurance in this backline whether
with Ramos or anyone else, he is so inconsistent that I wonder what exactly he
learned playing alongside Ramos and Pepe (who for me was the best pair of
central defenders that I have
personally witnessed. Even better than the Vidic-Ferdinand of Man United
pairing and the Nesta-Cannavaro of Italy). We signed Militao who has been very
poor and also has not been given enough chances to perform, he does look like a
bust so out of the list of central defenders only Nacho is playing at a very
good level. On the right side, Carvajal has slowly recovered his form after his
heart issues but cannot stay fit for a month, his natural substitute in
Odriozola has been so poor and lacked so much confidence that he was sent on
loan to Bayern for half a season last year. We have had Lucas Vasquez a natural
winger who had to deputize there and has been our best and most consistent
full-back.
The
midfield is another area where the roster has not been provided with what is
needed, there is no back-up for the only defensive mid we have in Casemiro. We
know that Ødegaard was recalled from his loan with La Real Sociedad but has not
been playing much as we all expected. Modric is 35 years old and still a very
good mid but he is 35!. Kroos has been the same old but he needs better pairing
around him for his contribution to provide even more offensively. Players such
as Isco are not at the level required to be in RM anymore and that has been the
case for 2 years at least, loaning Ceballos, selling Llorente are decisions
that are haunting us now. There is absolutely no depth in midfield where the
only player who has developed and become a key contributor is Fede Valverde. A
team of this caliber cannot have such thin options that are not even diverse in
its roaster.
The
attack is by far the area that needs the most improvements, we have Karim
Benzema (KB9) that is the only consistent contributor. Then we have teenagers
who have not had a full professional season where they've played consistently
in Vinicius and Rodrygo on whose shoulders the whole weight of the madridismo's
expectations are placed. We also have Jovic who barely featured somehow even
though 60 millions euros were spent on him and the ghost of Asensio who has
peaked at 24 years of age and is just not adding anything to the team when he
plays.
·
The coach- the tactic
The
great RM of 2014-2018 was the result of heavy investments in the team and
tactical setups from Jose Mourinho mainly but also Ancelotti then Zidane. But
Zidane and Ancelotti before him inherited ready made teams that were seasoned
and knew how to play and were hungry to win. The key of that roaster was the
attacking trident and the full backs. We had true right wingers in Di Maria and
Bale, a machine on the left wing in Cristiano (CR7) and the best 9.5 in the
world (who is truly a 10) in Benzema. KB9 allowed this team to be lethal in a
4-3-3 set-up as he will always drop in half-spaces between attack and midfield,
therefore dragging at least one central defender with him, which created space
for CR7 and Bale to run-in behind. Besides that, the actual wingers of the team
were Marcelo and Carvajal, on left and right, respectively. We had Casemiro
dropping down to form a line of 3 defenders on offensive phases and Kroos &
Modric in midfield controlling the tempo. There were iterations of this system
that could morph into a 4-4-2 when introducing Isco or James for one of the
wingers, this allowed more control in midfield. There was flexibility in this
team.
The
issue now is the team is more or less being setup by ZZ to play the same way
with a high press while we do not have the players to execute this approach at
all right now, especially in attack. The logic suggests that a change of
approach should be made first because of the roaster. We now have Mendy (who is
super average offensively) for Marcelo, we have Vinicius whose brain is faster
than his legs, no true right wing that offers verticality (to push the
opponent's back line further down) and KB9 who is still dropping in the space
while the players around him have no understanding of what they have to do.
All of
these things are the responsibility of the coach as he has shown a clear
incapacity to find the best formula to make it work with this roaster. True, he
did not get new reinforcements but he is responsible for allowing some players
to leave and flourish elsewhere while we are in need of players with their
profiles. This is just ridiculous that this team has resorted to play to not
lose and count on luck for goals. Something needs to change because the writing
is on the wall about a real disaster this year, besides the fact that I'm 90%
convinced there will be no silverware this year. The pragmatic approach of the
previous season worked but this is not going to cut it this year; he has to
find a way to make things work with what he has at his disposal and not force a
system that is clearly not appropriate for the squad. Anyone observing with a
keen eye can see that.
·
The president- the board
I never
thought I would be saying this about RM's board, but they are the victims of their
own success and since they raised the bar that high, I will be using that high
bar to judge. From his first stint as president, Florentino Perez has made us
used to having marquee signings, splashing millions across Europe to assemble
all star teams that had comparatively subpar results on the field but
masterstroke financially. This man is a billionaire and at the top of one of
the biggest construction conglomerate in the world, so he is not an idiot. We
all know that, judging by the last financial results of RM published last week
where we can see that the team is sound financially with absolutely no debt,
which is great but it begs the question, do all these results have to directly
affect the performances on the field? Let me rephrase this, is there a
correlation between success on the field and financial performances? The easy
answer will be a resounding "Yes" but in fact it is not the case in
reality. Good example, the Dallas Cowboys of the NFL have not won a super Bowl
since 1996 I believe but they have been valuating at an increase every year
since and are one of the most successful sports franchises in the world.
Francisco Perez-Cutino (2008) said, in his unpublished MBA thesis at Judge
Business School in Cambridge:
"But contrary to the common idea
that good [on field] performance will drive good financials,
There is evidence that better
revenue-generating structures can have a significant impact in the performance
of the team… only with good financial results clubs can buy and retain good
players and create good teams."
A team
should be developing sustainable economic-sport models to make profits to buy
and retain better players, which leads to better results. Another study from
the book Winners and Losers: The Business Strategy of Football (1999) by
Stefan Szymanski and Tim Kuypers details this extensively. So my point is I
know that a well rounded structure for marketing and generating revenues has
been implemented in RM. We have a very good business savvy guy as president and
also Jose Angel Sanchez who use to be CEO for SEGA southern Europe before
joining RM in 2000 with Florentino. This makes it worse when you place their
record in managing the finances with what they have provided managers in terms
of players over the last 4 years. It is borderline professional negligence, to
think we could lose CR7 and without investment still be/stay competitive on all
fronts and for me they carry the brunt of the responsibility of the miserable
display the team is providing week in and week out for the last 2.5 years. The
obsession of not having debt which I support should not come at the expense of
the team's performance and investments need to be made to get the rewards. Even
if there are no true correlations between the two, one cannot be sustained or
efficient without the other. Funny enough, what was Florentino biggest
criticism (splashing money all the time for big players) has become his
handicap as he refuses to indulge in such endeavors for his second stint as
president. The real issue for me is the lack of sporting strategy, hence the
need for a Sporting Director that can align his vision with whoever is the
coach, this will impact players that are signed and how to incorporate them. I
cannot believe my beloved RM has become so reactive and weak in terms of
transfers.
Quick
addition: I see RM might be missing on M'Bappe, if this is the case I will not
surprised to see fans asking the board to step down because that will be utter
incompetence if we are missing on all the stars that are supposed to be part of
the long term plan when the renovated stadium is open. This will be their fault
as they uncharacteristically built their whole strategy on just one player that
they did not even sign. As Alice Morse Earle once said
“Yesterday
is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called
the present.”
Hala
Madrid!
References
Mandis,
Steven G. “Real Madrid's on and off-Field Dominance.” Essay. In The Real
Madrid Way, First Ed. DALLAS, TX: BENBELLA BOOKS, 2016.
Szymanski, S.,
& Kuypers, T. (2000). Winners and losers.
Perez-Cutino,
F. (2008). Innovative approaches to increase revenues for football clubs.
Can good business sense make football better?
