Real Madrid drew (1-1) this Sunday against Girona FC to add their third consecutive defeat in LaLiga EA Sports and the fourth of the last five games played by the merengue team, which is going through a great slump after a month of November with only two wins in six games and in which its unreliability at home has caused it to lose the leadership it reaffirmed in the Clásico.
The team coached by Xabi Alonso was a solid leader and reinforced by its victory over FC Barcelona (2-1) at the end of October, but the ‘post-Clásico’ Real Madrid looks little like that of those first 10 league games. And, fundamentally, it is because it has sunk at home.
After the Classic, the whites won forcefully (4-0), in what was the last great Madrid joy in a black month of November for the merengue team, who seem to have replicated the famous, as Hansi Flick cataloged it, ‘shit november’ (‘shitty November’) that Barça experienced last season. Since then, Real Madrid fell at Anfield (1-0), with Thibaut Courtois avoiding a rout, drew goalless in Vallecas, finished 2-2 in Elche without ever leading and also left two points in Montilivi after starting losing.
They only beat the Greek Olympiacos (3-4) in Athens, not without doubts or suffering, to settle in the ‘top 8’ of the Champions League with a ‘poker’ from Kylian Mbappé, one of the few good news for the whites in recent weeks, in which they have revealed problems in the construction of the game and danger that affect the consistency of a team that was much more reliable at the beginning of the season. In fact, he has only scored 15 goals in eight outings and has conceded 10, half of them in the derby against Atlético de Madrid (5-2), clear proof of this poor performance away from home.
And Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid has already suffered five punctures in 19 games – 14 in the League and 5 in the Champions League – so far this year, with three draws and two defeats, all of them away from home, because performance away from the Bernabéu is their big unfinished business. Mainly, at the level of defensive solidity, achieving only one clean sheet in the last five games, despite the great level that Courtois is showing and with significant losses at the back. Last season they missed 22 points (4D and 5E), while in 23-24, in which they won the league title, they dropped 13.
Furthermore, the sensations are not the best, mainly, although the offensive effectiveness has worsened, without the ball. The merengue team began organized in the pressure, but in these last three draws the gear has fallen apart.
Before, until Vallecas, he averaged 10.3 recoveries in the rival field, while in the three setbacks the average has been 6.3. Now they have allowed 13 shots from rivals on average, and before 8.6, and the forcefulness has also decreased, since in these three ties they have won just over half (56%) of aerial duels, while until the 0-0 against Rayo it was 71%.
Until those three draws away from home, Xabi Alonso’s Real Madrid could boast of being the fourth best league start in the club’s history, but now the slowdown is strong and clear. It is still better than the start of the merengue team last year with Carlo Ancelotti, with whom they added 4 defeats and 3 draws in the first 19 games.
Although the start of the Tolosarra is still equal to or better than that of the last coaches who started a season with Real Madrid. For example, Ancelotti himself in 2021-22, also with 3 defeats and 2 draws in a campaign in which the club ended up lifting the League and the Champions League.
Spanish coach Julen Lopetegui arrived in the summer of 2018 and barely lasted 14 games in charge, in which he only added 6 wins, while he lost another 6 and tied 2 games, the last coach who has not finished a season he had started. And before, in 2015-16, Rafa Benítez also suffered 6 punctures (4E and 2D) and was dismissed in January.
And, this Wednesday, the whites travel to San Mamés, the scene where they already lost (2-1) last year, on the night in which Mbappé hit rock bottom with a missed penalty, but which was a turning point for the merengue team. Ernesto Valverde’s men are always a complicated and tough opponent, and they arrive after beating Levante and with the need to win at home to continue looking upwards.
Now, the merengue team, with 33 points to 1 behind the leader FC Barcelona, cannot afford a fourth setback in the race for the title and so as not to further undermine its level of confidence, in 2025 in which it has suffered 11 punctures as a visitor (7D and 4D), of the 15 it suffered in total at home.