Real Madrid started their defense of the LaLiga Santander title with a 2-1 away win at newly promoted Almería, but it wasn’t easy. They fell behind in the first half to a Largie Ramazani strike but bounced back in the second half thanks to goals from Lucas Vázquez and David Alaba, who rolled in a free-kick with his first touch after being substituted on.
Euan McTear was at the great-named Power Horse Stadium for Madrid management and these are his talking points from the game. He addressed three questions answered before the game and three new questions that will come from this performance.
Three answers
1. Would Ancelotti start another league season with a win?
This time last year, Real Madrid secured a comfortable 4-1 away win at Alavés to launch a successful league campaign. It was Carlo Ancelotti’s 20th and ninth consecutive win of the season’s opener after 26 attempts. In those 26 years as coach, he had only drawn five times and lost one of his season-openers. Here it looked like it could be a rare matchday-one defeat for the Italian, but in the second half they turned it around thanks to the attention of Lucas Vázquez and David Alba’s incredible first-touch free-kick. It is now 10 straight seasons in which the Italian has won in the opening round.
2. How would Real Madrid break through Almeria’s central defender’s wall?
Almería played a back three with deep full-backs, but in reality the home side had four central defenders on the pitch. Alongside Kaiky, Rodrigo Ely and Srdjan Babic in the centre, it was Chumi, a born centre-back and La Masia graduate, who played at right-back. On top of that, Almería’s midfielders had a very defensive profile and this would become a tough wall for Real Madrid. This task became even more difficult when Los Blancos fell behind and Almería left their opponents so little space, blocking up to 10 shots in the 90 minutes. In the end, the breakthrough came through tap, tap, tap until Lucas Vázquez found the smallest crack to slide the ball through and into the net. Add a moment of Alaba brilliance and that’s three points.
3. How would Tchouaméni do as No. 6?
There were four changes in the starting XI, but the one that interested me the most was Aurélien Tchouaméni, who was set to play the role of Casemiro. It’s interesting that Casemiro was dropped just after winning the UEFA Super Cup MVP award, but that just goes to show how badly Ancelotti wants to use Tchouaméni and how he plans to use him as a midfield anchor, at least for now. I sat in the press box and watched Tchouaméni a lot during his lesson on the pitch, especially when he wasn’t in the game. His body language constantly exuded confidence and he could be seen communicating with and orchestrating those around him. But he was very isolated, with both Nacho and Antonio Rudiger sitting very deep behind him. Obviously there is room for improvement. But that was always the case.
Three questions
1. Which of Camavinga and Modrić do you think is more urgent?
A substitution was needed at half-time and Ancelotti opted for Camavinga to be substituted for Luka Modrić. That made Real Madrid more urgent, which is strange considering Camavinga plays with so much urgency. But while Modrić may not have the pace or vertical dribbles of the Frenchman, he is always frantic and frantic, getting the game going quickly. He sprints to take corners and throw-ins quickly, the kind of game management Camavinga may be lacking at this point in his young career. The Croatian’s experience and match management is priceless as he knows what to do in every situation. Even with Alaba’s free-kick, Modrić looked for that foul, knowing what a good position he was in, and he got it. These are all tricks of the trade resulting from almost 37 years on this football loving planet.
2. Is Kaiky someone to watch out for in the future?
One of the Almería centre-backs mentioned above was Kaiky, the 18-year-old who the promoted side signed from Santos for €7m this summer. He had a particularly good game, made good tackles and also made good attacks from behind. The rising defender has been linked with Real Madrid in the past while Barcelona even had a first refusal on him. Now he is in Almería and expects a good season. Aside from how he handled Vinícius and putting up a good fight against his compatriot, Kaiky can handle the very best in the business and his value could multiply. Could Real Madrid be interested in him again in the future? Don’t rule it out. And in the meantime, enjoy watching his progress.
3. Is this team’s asymmetry positive or negative?
The performances of the full-backs were very interesting in this game. On the one hand, Ferland Mendy simply couldn’t do anything to help Vinícius in attack. On the other hand, Lucas Vázquez consistently went forward and had the ball in the net twice, once for offside and then to equalize. Assuming Lucas starts a lot of games this season – and with Dani Carvajal already injured it’s a logical assumption – we’ll see a very asymmetric performance across the two full-back positions. Then there’s also asymmetry in attack, mostly because of the kind of game-changing threat Vinícius presents on the left flank. This was also the case for many last season, while explaining many of the good and bad performances of tonight. So do the positives of the asymmetry in Real Madrid’s form outweigh the negatives?