“It is difficult to analyze, I don’t know if there was a lack of aggression, creativity, fighting a little more“. This was Andriy Lunin’s reflection at the end of the match that Real Madrid lost in Lille. Ancelotti’s men put an end to a streak of 259 days without losing, leaving a worrying image. Anyone can have a bad game, but what happened at the Decathlon Arena was something that could be seen coming.
Madrid has started the season showing signs of lack of playbut also intensity and energy in some sections of the games. The demanding Champions League has shown it. Against two rivals from a step (or two) lower, the whites have not shown any superiority. What’s more, in Lille they were behind their opponent in many phases of the match. “Lille have been better than us. We could use a bit of attention and a little criticism”Ancelotti summarized.
Lille 1-0 Real Madrid: summary and goals | Champions League (J2)
It is still early to draw obvious conclusions. Two games offer little data, but some conclusion can be drawn as to why Madrid does not look like, at least for now, the one that won the last edition without losing a single match and that won the first seven consecutively.
Defensive passivity
His defensive passivity is something that is not surprising because it has always been like this since Ancelotti returned in 2021. The team does not stand out for applying high and aggressive pressurebut remains waiting, generally in the middle block. But at the beginning of the season it has been accentuated and, in Europe, it is much more noticeable.
that the whites allow 13 passes from the rival (the so-called PPDA) before trying to steal it is not normal, no matter what his style is. For example, City is only waiting for 9 passes. And Bayern 8 (the least). And when he makes the attempt it is not in a very aggressive way, which makes things easier for his opponent. However it is the seventh that commits the most fouls (27, compared to Sturm Graz’s 37, the most). This explains why, not only does he take a long time to decide to recover the ball, but he often does not show efficiency.
Low physical deployment
Another aspect that draws attention is the physical display. The whites are of those who run the least after the first two days of the Champions League. The official statistics of the competition do not include the kilometers traveled by all the teams globally, but they do show the kilometers traveled by each match. From this it follows that there is no none below the 108.3 km average of the whites. They are far from the 122 of teams like Bayern or the 115 of Liverpool, PSG or City, to put it on a par with two contenders of its level.
The physical data handled by MARCA reveal that The one that has traveled the most kilometers is Dortmund, with 224.8. The European runners-up are Madridistas’ next contender. He Manchester City is the one that accelerates the most (2,018, understood as those between 1.5 and 3 meters per second squared) and Barcelona is the one that performs the most extreme accelerations (at more than 3 meters per second squared) with 136. In none of them is Madrid among the most outstanding.
Does not dominate the game
Madrid has always been characterized by being one of the teams with the highest percentage of possession. But not in this Champions League. He is one of those who always wants the ball and That their average possession is 51%, the 15th highest, is not a good sign. And even less so when their first two rivals (Stuttgart and Lille), no matter how hard they are, are not Europe’s top two, which makes this fact more worrying.
The whites are not dominating, they are not controlling the game. His 1,038 passes are only the eleventh highest of the 36 teams. But, in addition, Its 87.5% accuracy drops it to fourteenth. This makes it difficult for him to carry out dangerous actions.
In any case, the glass can also be seen as half full. Not all data is bad. Madrid has done things well. But it is evident that they must improve many things to be the unbeatable team of last season. There is time and games, but the reaction should not wait.
