The Spanish Giants

European champions!!!

After an away defeat to Athletic Bilbao in the La Liga, Real Madrid again faced a really shocking, humiliating and embarrassing defeat to the German side Schalke 04 in the Champions league. Though they narrowly escaped the exit from Champions League because of the goals from Cristiano Ronaldo and Marcelo in the First leg, Schalke had all the intention to keep the Spanish Giants on their knees, throughout the game!

It was again due to 2 brilliant headers from Ronaldo that matched the goals from Christian Fuchs and Klaas-Jan Huntelaar before the referee blew the first half whistle. Benzema gave the lead to Madrid on 52^nd minute but goal from Schalke’s Leroy Sane on the 57^th minute again brought down Madrid to the same spot. The final goal was scored by Ex Real striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar and Madrid faced a humiliating defeat to Schalke 04 at home. Though Real Madrid progressed to the Quarter –Finals but some might say that Schalke deserved to progress to the next leg more than Real Madrid.

 

Let’s now do some analysis and figure out where all Real Madrid went wrong and costed them the defeat:

Disorganized Defense

After the injury of Sergio Ramos, Madrid’s defense has been into questioning with Ancelotti pairing Pepe and Varane who is considered to be as one of the most exciting prospects for Real Madrid. On Tuesday against Schalke, Varane played quite shockingly and made an excellent back pass, whereas Fabio Coentrao was wandering on the pitch which really costed him.

Apart from them even Alvaro Arbeola didn’t follow the defensive line and made quite a few errors, along with no proper marking on the Schalke players and it gave them a clear path to rip apart Real’s defense. Bale is also being accused of being lazy and not helping his team to defend. Schalke was waiting for these errors and they took the full advantage of it.

Lack of Confidence

After a shocking defeat to Atheltic Bilbao, Madrid’s squad lacked confidence, Schalke was able to dispossess the players quite easily and despite Ronaldo giving an amazing performance, none of the others players can be rated above 6/10. The players had several poor touches, lost possession on crucial areas of pitch and the defenders were not able to mark the position of the attackers and from time to time Casillas was being tested.

Lack of Rotation

After losing Sergio Ramos and James Rodriguez to injury, Real Madrid has lost its touch in the game, this is because of lack of rotation in the squad, Madrid has several world-class players to fill in that position but as of now they are not living up to their reputation. Toni Kroos has played all the La Liga and Champions League and it looks like he is tired and needs to rest to be at his best once again.

Relying on Individual Skill

With players like BBC(Bale, Benzema, Cristiano) who can break through the defense with an ease, but at the moment Real madrid’s attackers are relying too much on their individual skills, which Ancelotti really needs to focus on. In the past few games Madrid’s major amount of goals are coming from penalties, to turn around things at Madrid all players needs to play as a team, similar to the way they were playing in the beginning of the season which helped them grasp an amazing 22 win streak.

Lack of fan support

Win or Lose, Players and Clubs needs support from their fans. Firstly after the Schalke defeat, the fans booed their Team on their way out, in previous matches they were constantly behind Gareth Bale due to his poor performances. The Fans need to have faith in their club, especially a club like Madrid who had an amazing 22 win streak before the year ended.

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