Tactics In Focus: Real Zaragoza 0 Real Madrid 6

As part of our on-going commitment to covering all aspects of Spanish football, we’ve recruited Harvey Burgess  from the Inverted Winger to give us a more detailed analysis of the tactics being used by La Liga’s top managers. Harvey kicks off the season by looking at how Mourinho’s new look Real Madrid dismantled Real Zaragoza so convincingly on Sunday.

Real Madrid continued their fine pre-season form by demolishing Real Zaragoza on the opening day of the season. Jose Mourinho’s men were inspired by a hat-trick from the Portuguese winger Cristiano Ronaldo, who has now scored 14 goals in his last five league games, eclipsing even that Lionel bloke who everyone seems to be raving about. Mourinho went with the side that most people were expecting, with new signing Fabio Coentrao playing where he had all of pre-season, in central midfield. Benzema now seems first-choice striker ahead of Gonzalo Higuain. Zaragoza had several new signings in the side, including right-winger Pablo Barrera.

Real Madrid

Jose Mourinho has instilled a pressing game into his side during pre-season and that was evident here, albeit not quite like against Barcelona in the Supercup. They defended from the front and prevented balls being played into the midfield. This requires a tremendous work ethic and a lot of stamina, but the Madrid players were certainly up to the task. One other thing to note was the fluidity of the front 4. Ozil aside, they were often found in each other’s positions, interchanging with ease. This Benzema is far removed from the target-man and lone-striker role he played at Lyon, and he also looks slimmer and fitter than ever. As with last season, Ronaldo and Di Maria swapped wings constantly, allowing for greater unpredictability and to give the Zaragoza defenders someone else to think about. As a result, many, if not all, of the goals Madrid scored were real team goals, with quick passing and interchanging attackers.

Fábio Coentrão

It is easy to underestimate just how different Madrid looked on Sunday night (from last season) and how much of this was down to Coentrao. Just in watching this game, you can see how many different characteristics he offers to Khedira, and I will try to explain a few of them here.

1. He is not so much a defensive midfielder (Khedira) as a box-to-box player, with his fantastic stamina and pace coming in very handy for this. This resulted in countless runs from deep, something which Zaragoza struggled to deal with. With Khedira in the side, there just isn’t that same element of surprise as there is when Coentrao plays, and this gives the opposition (and their coach) another headache to deal with.

2. The triangle he formed on the left-hand side was fascinating and not too dissimilar to the triangle Ancelotti formed at Chelsea in his better days (Cole-Lampard-Malouda). The three players constantly combined, often to devastating effect, and they created numerous chances between themselves.

3. Coentrao is left-footed. This may seem obvious (it is) but I have a point. Coentrao has played most of his recent career as a left-back and this is perhaps why Mourinho picks him here. His ability to cover for Marcelo is vital as Marcelo is so often attacking down the left flank and neither Khedira or Alonso could provide the cover as effectively as Coentrao. So often Marcelo got forward and so often Coentrao was seen covering for him at left-back (this wasn’t that useful as Zaragoza are a poor side, but will be very handy against better-equipped teams).

Real Zaragoza

That’s enough about Madrid, let’s talk about Zaragoza. Although on paper their formation was a 4-2-3-1, in reality it was much more complex than that. The ‘2’ were Zuculini and Ponzio, but if you look at the average positions (click here), you’ll see that Zuculini played as deep as the centre-backs, while Ponzio was almost in line with the wingers in front of him. They played too far apart and weren’t able to combine as any double-pivot should. What this meant was that Mesut Ozil was consistently able to find space between the lines, and he was always going to take advantage of it.

Again, looking at the average touch positions, you’ll see that Lafita was higher than Uche, showing Zaragoza’s tendency to try and use Uche as a target-man (this is further emphasised by the fact that the home side played 52 long balls out of a total of 310 passes, while Madrid played 45 out of 540 respectively) and get Lafita involved.

All in all, 46% of Zaragoza’s play came down their right, an astonishing figure when you think about it, and 100% of their shots came from the right-hand side. It is easy to see why they struggled to make an attacking impact when you see the performances of Coentrao and Marcelo down that side.

Conclusion

After the first couple of goals went in, this was almost a training match for the visitors, with little resistance offered. Real Madrid will certainly come up against stronger and better organised squads than this, although take nothing away from their performance, which was fluid and creative. Zaragoza, on the other hand, will struggle this season, although they won’t have many tougher matches this season to deal with.

All in all, a good performance from the visitors, and to all those of you who claim La Liga isn’t all about the big 2, I think Madrid on Sunday and Barcelona on Monday answered you in emphatic fashion.

Tags: Real Madrid Formation, Real Madrid tactics, Real Zaragoza 0 Real Madrid 6