After winning the UEFA Champions League and La Liga double last season and signing the world’s best player in the summer, 2024/25 should have been an easy trip to Real Madrid.
This has not been the case so far.
Los Blancos have struggled for form heading into the September international break, and are already four points behind leaders Barcelona in the La Liga title race.
Here’s everything we’ve learned from Madrid’s start to the 2024/25 campaign.
If you’ve been in Spain on your holidays in the last few weeks, you’ve probably passed a shop full of newspapers with Kylian Mbappe’s face on them.
Thanks to the Spanish sports press (AS, Sport, Mundo Deportivo), every aspect of Mbappe’s life as a Real Madrid player has been scrutinized by the media – especially after he failed to score in his first La Liga matches.
It’s a pressure that no other player in world football has to deal with right now…
…But it’s a pressure that Mbappe can clearly handle.
After a couple of La Liga games without a goal, the French star made his mark against Real Betis at the Santiago Bernabeu.
The striker’s two goals – in a 2-0 win – were a good example of what he can bring to Madrid this season.
While all the talk has been about how Mbappe-led Real Madrid’s new attacking team will perform ahead of the 2024/25 season, the real tactical problem facing Carlo Ancelotti is in midfield.
This is due to the absence of Toni Kroos.
The midfielder retired at the end of the 2023/24 season, and has left Madrid without a metronomic presence in the middle of the park.
While Aurelien Tchouameni, Federico Valverde, and Eduardo Camavinga are all great players in their own right, none have the skills Kroos has and none have been able to dictate the tempo of Madrid’s early season games the way he could.
It’s a big problem, and one with no obvious fix.
Having been one of the stars to emerge from Euro 2024, Real Madrid fans have been waiting to see more of Arda Guler at the start of the 2024/25 season.
So far, it hasn’t been.
The youngster has been limited to just 97 minutes and one start in La Liga, with Dani Ceballos being relied upon to fill in for the injured Jude Bellingham.
It’s a puzzling situation given Guler’s ceiling and performance at the end of 2023/24 – he scored five goals in five games – and one that Madrid fans hope will be resolved before the Turkish star asks for a move.
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