Real Madrid did it again

The thing! They did the thing!

Hi, everyone. This is the last post focused on the club season before I turn my attention to Euro 2024. I hope you’re excited about that tournament, because I plan on writing about every single matchday, much as I did during the 2022 World Cup, so you’ll be getting plenty to read. Right now, you can get ahead and subscribe with a 20% discount, which will be available until the tournament starts a week on Friday. For now, though, let’s talk Madrid.

“If we had more of Madrid’s basic philosophy we’d have won the Champions League far more often. I don’t know what exactly that club has, or that badge has, but they have always shown an ability to win even when they don’t play well”.

— Xavi Hernández, 2012¹

FBRef (which provided all data unless stated otherwise) has Champions League advanced data going back to the 2017-18, season. I wish it went further back, but what can you do. Across that period, Real Madrid have played 37 matches in the knockout rounds of Europe’s premier cup competition. In that time, they have generated 57.9 expected goals themselves and conceded 63.5. Yes, according to that metric, they’ve played below-average football in the Champions League knockout rounds.

In that period, they have won 20 of those matches, drawing (on the night) nine and losing eight. They’ve scored 66 goals and conceded 48. They’re good at this, even if I’m not entirely sure what they’re good at. I don’t think the people ripping into me on Twitter for questioning them could really tell me what they’re good at. I don’t think Carlo Ancelotti could tell me exactly why they keep winning. “It's difficult to answer why”, he explained before the game. "There is causality. From what, I don't know. The history, the traditions, the quality of the players, the character. It isn't coincidence”.

Before this match, Madrid had actually been performing at xG in the knockouts this season, but it didn’t feel that way. It’s a flaw in using xG to judge whether a team “deserved” to win. If a goalkeeper does something stupid on his line and passes it straight to an opposing striker under no pressure, that’s going to produce a very high xG chance, but no one would say it came from a brilliant bit of football. Madrid have delivered moments of quality without often dominating the matches over 90 minutes, but those moments have delivered high-xG chances.

This game, in many ways, was more of that. Most xG models have Borussia Dortmund ahead, but modern rules encouraging referees to wait on the offside flag are causing havoc here. I don’t know if this chance from Niclas Füllkrug would’ve been ruled out, but it looks more offside than not. FBRef’s model gave the chance 0.68 xG, which accounts for almost the entire difference between the two sides. Don’t let anyone tell you the stats nerds love VAR.

Ancelotti’s biggest issue going into the final was Aurélien Tchouaméni’s injury. Madrid aren’t short of good midfielders, but Tchouaméni is the only natural holding player in the senior squad. Eduardo Camavinga started nominally at the base of midfield, with Toni Kroos to his left and Fede Valverde in his usual shuttling role on the right of the trio. But when Madrid were in possession, Kroos would often drop deeper to form more of a double pivot and become the main distributor from deep. This was, in theory, a smart way to divide Tchouaméni’s duties between two players and get better use of Kroos’ passing range. Elsewhere, it was pretty much as expected. The front three played their weird shape where Rodrygo and Vinícius Júnior were halfway between wingers and strikers, while Jude Bellingham was a very false nine, often dropping much deeper than the two Brazilians.

While the midfield structure was a nice idea, I’m not sure it worked in practice. Kroos is retiring, and even at his physical peak he was never N’Golo Kanté. Camavinga was obviously expected to do more of this, but he didn’t quite look sure about when to sit and when to push up. Dortmund’s best moments in the first half came from quick movements straight through the midfield, opening up the gap from this tactical issue.

When Madrid had the ball in the first half, Dortmund pressed them well. Madrid spent a lot of time passing it in their own half, with Dortmund blocking off passing lanes. They’d get frustrated at times and go long, which speaks to how stifled they were. The game Ancelotti wanted just wasn’t there in the first half. People will talk a lot about how the game plan went perfectly, but they really were bad in those 45 minutes.

I know the plan wasn’t working because Ancelotti changed it at half-time. He moved to something like a 4-2-3-1 with Kroos and Camavinga as a conventional double pivot, Vinícius playing wide on the left and Valverde on the right, plus Bellingham as the ten behind Rodrygo as an unconventional lone striker. This made it easier for Madrid to defend in a lowish block without the ball, as they already had two natural banks of four. Camavinga and Kroos seemed like they had been told to be more disciplined and stay closer together. It stretched Dortmund better, forcing them to defend in wide areas as well as transitions straight down the middle. People have painted Ancelotti as a “vibes” manager against stricter tacticians in modern football, but this was him making a really smart old-school tactical tweak.

I don’t have a great deal to say about the first goal. It was a well-worked corner, though nothing elaborate. We know Madrid do the basics better than other teams and this was an example of that. The second goal was similar. I could make an argument that Vinícius was starting in a slightly wider position due to the formation change, but in truth, I’m not sure it genuinely mattered. Getting better organised meant that Madrid took control of the game, but they still won on individual moments of quality rather than something systemic.

I don’t want to overhype this performance. Real were poor in the first half but upped their game in the second and did what they were expected to do. Dortmund finished fifth in the Bundesliga this season. Madrid generate about double the German side’s revenue. The wins against Bayern Munich and Manchester City were more impressive given the calibre of opposition. This was the kind of final performance good enough to get the job done.

I still don’t think any of my questions about Madrid have been answered. Either you accept they have magic powers or they don’t. Data nerds as esteemed as the Financial Times’ John Burn-Murdoch are believers in the magic powers. I’m still not totally convinced, even if I can accept Madrid are a legitimately good side. Maybe they’re one of the five or so best teams in Europe, which always puts them at a chance of winning it all if things break properly. And things have broken properly a lot at the Santiago Bernabéu.

Now they’re adding probably the best player in the world to this team. Do I know how Kylian Mbappé fits into this side? My hunch is that he’ll just replace Rodrygo in big games, with some tactical flexibility. I’m sure Florentino Pérez will put pressure on Ancelotti to start all four attackers, but I’m also pretty confident common sense will prevail by the business end of next season. Will Mbappé make them better at controlling football matches and dictating some overarching philosophy? Probably not. Will he score lots of goals and deliver in big moments? Well, that would be most Real Madrid of him. All they do is win.

1. Hunter, Graham (2012). Barça: The Making of the Greatest Team in the World. United Kingdom: BackPage Press.