MADRID, March 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Real Madrid is going through a sea of doubts regarding its game model and identity, after showing an ‘anger’ with the goal in recent games. An evil that appears at the key moment of the season and that weighs down the white team in order to achieve the ambitious goals in the form of titles, with LaLiga Santander bordering on the impossible and trailing behind in the Copa del Rey semifinals.
Only one goal, already a set piece, is the poor record of the Merengue team in the last three games, against Atlético (1-1), Barça (0-1) and Betis (0-0). It seems that the recital with a ‘little hand’ included against Liverpool at Anfield in the first leg of the Champions League round of 16 has exhausted the goalscoring reserves of the madridistas, stuck in three quarters of the field and without much lucidity to send the ball into the back of the net .
In addition, in this 2023 he has already accumulated three games in which he has not seen the goal (Real Sociedad –0-0–, Mallorca –1-0– and Betis –0-0–), although this bad He suffered quite remarkably when he was unable to score in up to eight of his league games, five of them at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium (Villarreal, Osasuna, Cádiz and Betis –0-0– and FC Barcelona –0 -4–).
On an individual level, despite not excessively bad goalscoring figures in general, neither Karim Benzema (18 goals, 11 in the league and only two in a Champions League in which he has not played much) nor Vinicius Júnior (18, seven in the League and six in Champions) live a bright enough moment to decide games. The Frenchman is not the same incisive and omnipresent footballer of last year, handicapped by injuries and irregularities, without a scoring contribution in the last three games.
Like the Frenchman, the Brazilian, who also celebrated a double in the 2-5 win at Anfield, has gone through three games without scoring. He tries unsuccessfully, also leading in ‘fights’ that have little to do with football. Behind, Fede Valverde, with 12 goals, and Rodrygo, with 10, complete the upper zone of the scoring chart, although the Uruguayan has lifted his flight since the World Cup and both are setting their best records as Real Madrid players. And this translates into a very low performance in front of goal in the domestic championship, with 47 goals in favor with only 14 games remaining.
A fact that magnifies the irregularity in terms of the goalscoring facet that Real Madrid has experienced in the last two decades. To his credit, the League still holds up with the record for goals scored, in 2012 and with José Mourinho on the bench: 100 points and 121 goals. However, they have not exceeded 100 goals in the domestic championship since 2017, when before that 16-17 campaign he linked seven courses over one hundred goals. Something that at present seems totally improbable.
And it is that the whites saw their scoring ability diminished with the departure of Cristiano Ronaldo at the end of the 17-18 campaign, the last with great records (94 goals). Since his departure, and without a clear scoring reference, the barrier of 70 goals was not overcome until last year, when they reached 80 goals, with the ‘pichichi’ Benzema (27) and an outstanding Vinicius (17), the only together with Marco Asensio (10) in signing double-digit scorers.
Nor does it seem like a very high scoring figure this season, only surpassing three goals scored three times in the League -Elche (4-0), Mallorca (4-1) and Celta (1-4), twice in the Champions League -Celtic (5-1) and Liverpool (2-5)- and two in the World Cup -Al Ahly (1-4) and Al Hilal (5-3)-. Thus, with 47 goals scored in the domestic championship, he could repeat a record similar to the very poor 67 goals with which he finished the 2021-2021 season, which still allowed him to be second with title options until the last day.
Figures that, although they are even higher than the goals scored (46) by the leader FC Barcelona, are not as decisive as the Barca goals. And it is that Xavi Hernández’s men have converted 46 goals, which, however, have been much more effective, with six of the last nine games winning by only one goal difference, in its most practical version, to get nine points difference over The whites.
And it is that the main difference, in addition to the offensive drought of Real Madrid, is the defensive performance, which has suffered a downturn compared to the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons when it conceded 25 and 28 total goals, respectively. In the past course he conceded 31 goals, while in the current season the whites have already collected the ball from their goal on 18 occasions, compared to 8 for Barça.
Thus, in the final and decisive stretch, the Real Madrid team will have to sharpen their teeth in attack and be more forceful in their own area, to improve the nine unbeaten goals they have achieved in the 24 games played in LaLiga Santander. In the last decade, Real Madrid has only been the team with the most clean sheets (19) on one occasion, with very poor records in 16-17 and 17-18 (10), with an average of just over 14 in the nine campaigns prior to the current one.