Thibaut owes a debt to Real Madrid in the Champions League. The Belgian goalkeeper, signed in the summer of 2018 in exchange for 35 million from of London Chelsea, has been generally irregular in his time with the white team, and that irregularity becomes more evident when Madrid walks through Europe, in recent years with bad fortune and improvable results. Courtois knows that part of that responsibility rests on his shoulders, as his performance in the Champions League playing in white does not go according to what was expected of him.
Courtois has played 17 games for Madrid in the European Cup; In his first season he only played since Lopetegui was dismissed and Solari replaced him, as the Basque had decided to give Keylor Navas the Champions League and leave Courtois for the League nothing more. The statistics in those 17 games do not invite optimism: only seven wins, three draws and another seven defeats, with just five games leaving a clean sheet, 29%.
In the Champions League, Courtois has conceded 28 goals for Real Madrid, an average of 1.6 goals conceded per match. A very high figure for a supposed contender for the continental title. His numbers in the league do match much more with what Madrid expected of him when they signed him: 68 goals conceded in 72 games, below the goal per game. Last season was the best example of this: only 20 goals in 34 league games played by the Belgian (Areola played the rest), with an average of 0.59 goals per match that earned him the Zamora Trophy.
The irregular path of Courtois
That moment in an outstanding way is the one that Zidane needs to see from Courtois in the Champions League. So far, the Belgian has been a leading part, involuntarily, in several European fiascos of Madrid. So much so that last year, during Bruges' visit to the Bernabéu, he was whistled by the stadium after the first two goals of the team from his native country. They were not manifest errors by Courtois, but the fans had already taken his registration as a goalkeeper who did not do miracles, something that Iker Casillas used to the white fans for more than a decade.
That whistle and the defeat in Mallorca, with a goal in the only shot from the vermilion, meant a change of course for Courtois. Zidane now wants that new direction to put the emphasis on the Champions League, where Madrid will play this Wednesday in Valdebebas for the pass to the round of 16 against Borussia Mönchengladbach.