So there it is, Real Madrid are Champions of Spain for a record 33rd time.
That record is so emphatically theirs that Barcelona would have to win La Liga for 10 years straight to break it. Real Madrid are the Kings of La Liga, but despite the vast power of their squads, this is just their second Title in the last nine years and their first since 2012. They been living in a period of open rebellion, but this season the Empire struck back.Zinedine Zidane’s men finished the season with 93 points having won 29 games, drawing six times and losing just three games; at home to Barcelona and then away to Sevilla and Valencia. They have been utterly relentless from start to finish.
As with all league triumphs there were a thousand tiny stories throughout the campaign helping Los Blancos along, but when you get down to it, there have been four key factors that have helped Madrid power their way to La Liga glory. What are they? sir aydot investigates!
1. Squad Depth
Real Madrid have the greatest squad in the world. It is as simple as that, really. They have a back-up for every position, and with the exception of Fabio Coentrao and Danilo as reserve full-backs, anyone they put out instead of the starter can keep up their supreme level of play.
No club in the world can boast such ridiculous depth. Kiko Casilla is a quality goalkeeper to come in if Keylor Navas is unavailable, at centre-back they have Sergio Ramos as a guaranteed starter but then Pepe, Raphael Varane and Nacho as a rotating options. Each bring their own qualities to bring (Varane is held back from being a regular starter by injury alone).
In midfield and attack their starting six is well known (Casemiro, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Gareth Bale, Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema) but their back-ups are utterly ridiculous. Mateo Kovacic is a dynamic box-to-box midfielder who has won more take-ons (59) than any other Madrid player. Lucas Vázquez is a relentless winger who provides key tactical width (more on this later) and Marco Asensio is one of the brightest young prospects in Europe, capable of creating and scoring in equal measure.
Their back-up striker is Alvaro Morata, a borderline world-class striker who helped Juventus to two domestic doubles in a row before re-joining Madrid. Despite limited minutes his 15 Liga goals are more than any player bar Cristiano. And then there’s the real magic: Isco and James.
Both are ridiculously world-class footballers. James Rodríguez was one of the stars of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and cost Real Madrid €80m; yet he has found himself sitting on the bench. Of those who have played more than 10 games, only Morata and Cristiano can top his 0.61 goals per-90 minute and only Isco outdoes his 0.46 assists per-90. He’s unreal.Then Isco? Good grief, what can be said about Isco? A world-class superstar who has always been a key performer for Madrid off the bench, but became even moreso this season. Clearly discontent with his role under Zidane, Isco (and Madrid) caught a break when Gareth Bale’s numerous injuries and Zidane’s mass rotation have paved the way for him to start regularly. And he has been incredibly dominant, powering Los Blancos’s superb run late in the season.
This depth is so supreme that Real Madrid have been able to mass-rotate (we’re talking 6+ changes) their starting XI around the Champions League quarter-finals and semi-finals and not miss a step. Los Blancos have lost just once in the last two months of the season, to Barcelona, a game in which Isco bizarrely played no part. It has been the biggest reason for this Title triumph.
2. Tactical Simplicity
Rotating your team so heavily is often advised against because players need consistent minutes in order to develop a rhythm. This is usually because when it comes to football, there is so much information to absorb, so much you need to know to understand and execute your teams system.
So ordinarily you can’t rotate as much as Zidane has done this season and expect to win. Except Zidane has won, and his side has basically always played the same. How? Zidane has kept things very simple. On a tactical level there’s little different between Real Madrid and a team managed by, say, David Moyes.
Los Blancos keep it simple. Get it wide and put crosses into the box, and take full advantage of set-pieces. That’s literally the extent of their gameplan. For once Sam Allardyce’s claims he could manage Real Madrid don’t seem quite so ridiculous as they usually do.
But this simplicity is not born of desperate need, although it does pick-up when they are desperate (Los Blancos sent in 48 crosses in the loss to Valencia and a ridiculous 54 in the home draw with Villarreal) but is a calculated gameplan to make use of Madrid’s ridiculous squad.
3. Managing Cristiano
One of the greatest pure goalscorers of all-time, up there with Ferenc Puskas and Eusebio, Cristiano Ronaldo has been a monumental footballer for Real Madrid. But even monuments get old, they decay and crack, the elements slowly wear down their features, they need maintenance.
Most managers who have tried to control Cristiano (well, just Rafa Benitez really) have been met with fierce opposition. Precious few great players can acknowledge the passage of time and how it effects them. For a good few years now Cristiano has been a hulking mass of muscle who has refused to acknowledge that, now the wrong side of 30, he needed help.
Oh sure, the goals have always been there, but his influence has been slowly dropping since the eye-popping peak in 2013/14. He has been harder to spot during games, or at least, harder to spot doing anything useful or productive. But then he’d show up and score so no one took any notice.
But this season the decline took such hold that he didn’t even really do that. In his first 25 Liga games of this season, he had scored just 19 goals (for him, a paltry sum). But that he had only played 25 games by the middle of April was saying something.Zidane had been resting him, bringing him off here and there, barely playing him in the Copa del Rey. This in addition to persuading him to shed some of his muscle mass and become leaner had the effect of allowing Cristiano to reach the end of the season in better shape.
And so, in his last five games he has scored seven goals. All of them essential to getting Madrid the wins they needed to stay ahead of Barcelona in a fierce Title race (and who can forget the eight goals in his last four Champions League games to help Madrid get to the final).
4. Relentlessness
No team has scored more goals after the 75th minute of a Liga match than Real Madrid’s 28. That’s 28 out of 106, mind you. While rivals Barcelona have floundered thanks to their inadequate squad, terrible officiating, tactical confusion and some laughable finishing, Madrid are crystal clear about what they have to do and as such a staggering 26% of their goals come in the most important moments of a match.
Moreover, when Madrid have entered the 75th minute of a match with the lead, they are rarely pegged back. Las Palmas turned a 1-2 defeat into a 2-2 draw, Antoine Griezmann grabbed an 85th minute equaliser for Atlético Madrid at the start of April, and Sevilla actually “Madrid’ed” Madrid, turning a 0-1 defeat into a 2-1 win with goals in the 85th and 91st minute at the Ramón Sánchez Pizjuan.
So they have only been caught-out three times (for a grand total of four goals), but how about at the other end? Consider this: ten times this season Real Madrid have entered the 75th minute of a match level with their opponents, and on five of those occasions they have gotten a late winner, and on two other occasions (Deportivo and Las Palmas at home) they have scored twice to come from behind to win.
Two other matches have seen late winners, one for Madrid (vs. Valencia) and one against (vs. Barcelona), both at the Santiago Bernabeu. But in those games the result didn’t change between the 75th and 90th minute, only the score. With Marcelo answering Dani Parejo’s late equaliser against Valencia, and Leo Messi striking a 92nd minute winner in the Clásico after James’ 82nd minute equaliser.
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