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Three talking points ahead of Athletic Club vs Real Madrid | La Liga MD 38
Real Madrid will take to the field for the final time this season tonight, and it will be against Athletic Club de Bilbao at the Santiago Bernabeu.
With the league title already decided, not much rides on the game or the eventual result, but the match will still bear significance as it represents the end of several chapters at the club.
The last time Athletic Club locked horns against Real Madrid this season, Los Blancos ran away with a 3-0 win away from home.
Given that the Basque side are not enjoying their best moment in terms of form, especially with just one win in their last five games, Real Madrid will look to capitalise on their chance to finish the season strong tomorrow.
Madrid Universal brings you three talking points ahead of Real Madrid vs Athletic Club de Bilbao.
Farewell to the stalwarts
It has become a norm at this point for Real Madrid to lose one or more key players at the end of every season – and it has more often than not been captains at the end of their contracts.
Having lost Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Nacho Fernandez, and Karim Benzema in recent years, it is now the turn of Dani Carvajal to bid the club of his dreams adieu.
The Spanish full-back has not seen much playing time this season and never quite returned to his former level after the injury he suffered to his knee. With Trent Alexander-Arnold now at the club to replace him, it is time to leave.
Carvajal, thus, will say goodbye to Real Madrid, the Bernabeu, and the club faithful on Sunday night in what will be an emotional affair for the veteran stalwart.
Alongside him, David Alaba will also bid the fans and the stadium goodbye as his contract approaches expiry and the club have decided against renewing his deal.
The past two years have not been easy for him either, but one cannot forget how he was a pillar in Real Madrid’s defence a few seasons ago and the impact he had on the team when he was at his best.
Arbeloa’s final game in charge
Ahead of the clash against Athletic Club on Sunday night, Real Madrid manager confirmed that he will be leaving the club this summer and will not continue as the manager next season.
The matter was already an open secret for a long time, but his confirmation made it official and also helped him exit the club with grace instead of being shown the door.
Real Madrid are thus heading for a radical change in ideas, tactics and approach with Jose Mourinho set to take over from the current manager next month. This game, in that sense, marks the end of the Arbeloa chapter for the club.
While his tenure at the club was not the most memorable in terms of results, he will always be remembered as a good man-manager who stepped in amid crisis and did a decent job despite it being out of his depth.
His tenure may have begun smoothly with him supporting players in the dressing room and having their backs, but he too got dragged into the dressing room politics towards the end and experienced its wrath, with players no longer maintaining any respect for him.
What can be said about his tenure, however, is that he is a good manager, but he earned the biggest chance of his career at the wrong time with the wrong players.
As was the case with Xabi Alonso, the dressing room made the image of him poorer than it was.
How will the Bernabeu receive Valverde
Federico Valverde’s fight with Aurelien Tchouameni earlier this month took media outlets by storm and made it clear that Real Madrid’s internal environment is more turbulent than meets the eye.
In the brawl between the two stars, Valverde was supposedly the initiator but also ended up as the more aggrieved party as he was admitted to the hospital for traumatic brain injury after hitting his head against a table.
Irrespective of how the situation was handled internally, the fight did not go down well with the fans and Tchouameni faced their wrath in Real Madrid’s home win against Real Oviedo when he was booed.
Tomorrow, Valverde returns to the field for the first time since that debacle and it will be interesting to see how the bernabeu receives the player or responds to him returning to the field.
It is no secret that Valverde is key to Real Madrid’s midfield plans and that his return must be greeted with cheers by the fans. His behaviour and involvement in the fight, however, may well see him receive a hostile response.
As the captain of Real Madrid, how the audience receive Valverde holds a lot of significance. After all, the club cannot afford any further rifts between the players and the fans.
Five games into the new season, Real Madrid are firmly placed second in the La Liga standings with 12 points to their name. Only Barcelona with a perfect 15 sit ahead of them.
The one game Los Blancos dropped points in was against Real Betis, and they went on to turn the tables in their very next game against Rayo Vallecano with a 4-1 win at the weekend.
One cannot help but notice, however, that the team have struggled in both their away games so far this season – first a 2-1 win over Espanyol at the death and then a 1-0 defeat to Real Betis.
Tomorrow, they take on Elche in their third away game of the season, and there will be serious pressure on them to get a convincing result and do away with the away myths.
Madrid Universal brings you three talking points ahead of Elche vs Real Madrid.
Arda Guler deserves the start
Real Madrid’s performances this season have not always been the most convincing, but they manage to find a way to come out on top. The game against Rayo Vallecano was more of the same.
Los Blancos did well in the first half to drag away with the momentum, but they suffered after the break as the visitors began pressing and creating chances. Out of fatigue, Real Madrid struggled to keep up.
Everything changed, however, after Arda Guler was introduced off the bench. Replacing Yan Diomande, the young Turk took matters into his own hands and began creating chance after chance for Real Madrid.
All of a sudden, Los Blancos began controlling the game better than before and overtook the opposition’s dominance, making the final phase of the game easy.
Over all of the team’s games so far, Real Madrid have performed significantly better with Guler on the field. While he has played primarily on the right wing, there is also a growing sense of understanding that he could be the Kroos and Modric replacement the club needs.
In any case, the player has merited a starting spot in the team at this point, and he must be in the XI tomorrow night, likely replacing Diomande on the flank once more.
Mbappe’s away scoring record
Kylian Mbappe has been one of, if not the most important attacking assets for Real Madrid so far this season. He won the Pichichi award last season and is even one of the favourites for the Ballon d’Or.
There is, however, a surprising fact about the player’s goalscoring form that has gone under the radar. It is, needless to say a shocking one and has to do with his form scoring goals away from home.
As matters stand, Mbappe’s last goal away from home in La Liga came back in early February this year. It was at Mestalla against Valencia, and the player has not scored on the road in the league ever since.
After that game, Real Madrid played away against Osasuna, Mallorca, Real Betis and Sevilla and the forward did not find the back of the net on any occasion. Even in Europe, he only scored once away against Bayern Munich.
This season, the team have already played against Espanyol and Real Betis, and Mbappe did not score on either night. Notably, he has scored in all four home games in the meantime.
Having not scored away from home in La Liga for over six months, Mbappe will be keen to turn that record around tomorrow.
Preparing for the big test
The first massive domestic test for Real Madrid is set to take place this weekend when Los Blancos lock horns with local rivals Atletico Madrid in the season’s first Madrid derby.
In that sense, the clash tomorrow against Elche will be the team’s final match practice before the derby and becomes all the more important in terms of gauging the team’s preparation.
At this point in the season, Mourinho does not have a whole lot figured out in terms of his preferred ‘big game XI’ barring the usual suspects in Kylian Mbappe, Vinicius Jr. and Jude Bellingham.
The midfield and defence, in particular, remain a grey area in terms of the manager’s pecking order and tomorrow’s game may serve as an early audition for the first big domestic game of the season.
Dean Huijsen, Ibrahima Konate and Antonio Rudiger have all featured as starting centre-backs for Real Madrid so far, and the situation at full-back is not very different.
Denzel Dumfries and Trent Alexander-Arnold have both enjoyed starts at right-back while Marc Cucurella and Alvaro Carreras both have the manager’s trust at left-back.
Similarly, there is a battle in midfield for a starting spot in the double pivot between Federico Valverde, Aurelien Tchouameni, Bernardo Silva and Eduardo Camavinga.
Deciding which of the players are higher up on the pecking order, thus, is crucial ahead of the derby and that decision may well be based on tomorrow’s performances.
