What is wrong with Real Madrid’s defence?

Real Madrid’s winning start to the season came to a crashing halt as they suffered a 5-2 defeat in Saturday’s derby. They were somehow leading going into first-half stoppage time having scored from both of their shots, but a subsequent collapse led them to their biggest loss against Atlético Madrid in a decade. This also marked the first time their arch-rivals put five past them since the good old days of 1950.

This was an all-round weird performance from Los Blancos, as Patrick and I discussed on the podcast yesterday.

Their build-up was uncharacteristically horrendous, but that might yet be written off as a one-off. However, there were some recurring defensive issues exposed again, so those merit closer inspection.

Set Pieces and crosses

Both first-half goals Real Madrid conceded in this game were headers, and they also gave away a penalty from a corner very soon into the second period. Los Blancos generally weren’t any good at set pieces under Carlo Ancelotti, and that hangover has very much continued so far in the early days of Xabi Alonso’s tenure.

Six games into the La Liga season, Real Madrid are third both for set piece goals conceded (4) and set piece xG conceded (2.74) per Opta Analyst. A league-high proportion of 31.44% of their xG conceded total has come from such situations. My initial reaction to these numbers was that they were likely skewed by the latest match, but FotMob data (which includes xG stats from Opta) shows only 0.68 set piece xG conceded this weekend, so it very much can be considered a season-wide issue so far.

Alonso’s Argentine assistant Sebas Parrilla was often credited with making Bayer Leverkusen one of the best Bundesliga teams in dead-ball situations, but he is yet to have the same effect in the Spanish capital. Leganés set piece coach Jesús Rueda also made the switch to Madrid just last week, perhaps suggesting that they recognise the issue at hand.

The trouble is that there might not be an easy fix. While a lack of preparedness might be a part of Real Madrid’s set piece defending issues, arguably the bigger challenge is that they simply do not have many good defenders for such situations. I’ve gotten my hands on some HOPS data to illustrate this.

First of all, I should explain that HOPS, which stands for Header Oriented Performance System, is a model developed by StatsBomb which produces a HOPS score for every player – essentially the probability of them winning an aerial duel against an average opponent. There is some more information on the methodology and specifics of the model in this explainer, but for the purpose of this piece, you might want to think of it as a more refined cousin of aerial duels. The HOPS score is expressed as a percentage, meaning the average player’s score is 50%. Of course, the average varies by position as it goes up to around 60% for centre backs but drops to about 45% for wingers.

Real Madrid do have two excellent central defenders in Éder Militão and Dean Huijsen who both score over 70%, while the team leader is Aurélien Tchouaméni with a score of 73.7%. Eduardo Camavinga and Federico Valverde come in at well over 60%, but that is about it in terms of positives. The big issue is that absolutely all of Los Blancos’ forwards are well below average, and they usually have four of those guys on the pitch at the same time. So, even when facing an average opponent, they could quite easily have to contend with a couple of potential aerial mismatches in set piece situations.

Alonso’s side also looked quite shaky against Atléti’s crosses at times, with Alexander Sørloth particularly causing problems and scoring the equaliser with his head. He turned in Koke’s delivery by ghosting in between two opposition defenders, as Huijsen was distracted by another attacker while Álvaro Carreras – who initially was keeping an eye on him – simply let him go on the goal-side.

While this was just one example with various other issues, it highlights another personnel-related challenge for Real Madrid. All of their fullbacks are somewhere between subpar and plain bad aerially, so crosses to the far post are always going to be a problem. Add to that the fact that Thibaut Courtois isn’t a commanding cross-claimer and their wingers often do not fully track back to double up wide, and it becomes pretty easy for opponents to target a weakness.

High defensive line issues

One marked difference in Real Madrid’s defending from last season to this is that they have tended to start and stay significantly higher up the pitch. Improving on the eyebrow-raising pressing coordination under Ancelotti is not much of an achievement, but it has to be said that Kylian Mbappé has led the line well enough off the ball, and even Vinícius Júnior has shown glimpses of good defensive work.

While things look to be getting better at the front end of Los Blancos’ press, there still is some clear room for improvement at the back. This is clearly reflected in the numbers, which show a big change in the defensive distance but an increased xG/shot conceded average and more clear shots conceded per 90.

These issues have been persistent since Xabi Alonso’s first matches in charge at the Club World Cup. The first choice centre back pairing is quite strong in the air as previously established, but a simple part of the problem can be attributed to the fact that Raúl Asencio has often been next in line, and his radar looks like this:

Hey, at least he doesn’t get dribbled past easily!

More importantly, there are some structural issues in Real Madrid’s defensive line when high up the pitch. They often use a very player-oriented approach including across the back line, meaning their centre-backs can be dragged forward at times. Even if they win all of their duels, the problem is that they can simply be bypassed at times if the opponents target the space created in behind or look to go out wide, where Los Blancos’ fullbacks are not renowned for their defensive aptitude high up the pitch either.

Marseille often tried to exploit this tendency in their Champions League match by keeping their wingers high and wide like so:

Indeed, it was the two visiting wingers that combined for the opening goal in that game, albeit in a different sequence. While individual mistakes can play a part in such cases, it is also up to the coach to try and mask their players’ weaknesses, so such an approach might just be too demanding of Real Madrid’s fullbacks.

It should be said that Alonso has consistently made some tweaks in his side’s out of possession setup and generally found something close to the right balance. In fact, he might just have gone too far the other way against Atléti this weekend, as he dropped the defensive line much deeper than usual but perhaps ended up inviting too many crosses.

On the whole, I remain largely positive of where Real Madrid are headed under their new coach, but this weekend’s match showed that they have some very clear room for improvement defensively. All Los Blancos can do now is try to put this result behind them and show tangible progress in upcoming games, starting with a huge clash against the mighty Kairat in Almaty tonight.

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