A Madrid below zero

Real Madrid reaped a new goalless draw against Betis, an important slip in the face of their options to continue fighting for LaLiga. All is not lost, it depends on Barcelona and Atlético not doing their homework in their respective duels against Villarreal and Athletic, but if both comply and win, the distances will begin to be insurmountable for a Madrid that rowed a lot to get hooked on the fight and that now he is seriously threatened to die on the shore after swimming out of the water.

He has left four of the last nine points: he drew without goals against Getafe and did the same against Betis in Valdebebas; In between they won 0-3 in Cádiz, with three goals in ten minutes that disarmed the Cádiz team, which until then had suffered rather little. These punctures join the goalless draw at Anfield against Liverpool, internalized as a triumph in practice., as it gave the pass to the semifinals of the Champions League after 3-1 in the first leg, but that started a dangerous trend. Madrid have been left without scoring in three of their last four games and that feeling of enormous difficulty returns to the Madrid dressing room to capture the white domain.

It hadn't happened to him all season. Similar moments were hinted at: in the first five games of the season, he was left unmarked twice. But the problem seemed solved for the final stretch of the course: before the Liverpool game, Madrid chained 17 games in a row, scoring, a stage in which he averaged 1.9 goals per game. At the gates of the Champions League semifinals against Chelsea, a team that is distinguished by its defensive rockiness (it has left a clean sheet in 16 of 21 games with Tuchel on the bench), Madrid are stuck again.

Less goal, less chances

Not only in the goal task, but also in the generation of opportunities. The constant casualties that Real Madrid has been suffering in all parts of the field have undoubtedly not helped in this regard, nor the exhaustion shown by regular footballers, forced to play every three days in the absence of healthy replacements. In the last four games, Madrid have only generated seven great scoring chances, and five of them were against Cádiz. Against Getafe and Betis, none. His average in the previous ten games in this parameter was 2.6, which is also the entire season.

There are problems to score and there are problems to shoot: in these last four games Madrid has made only 8.5 total shots and 3.25 shots on goal, on average.. Well below their season averages, bordering on 11 total shots and five on goal per game, respectively. An important problem at the gates of the double confrontation with Chelsea, which will largely mark Madrid's options That depends too much on Benzema's scoring inspiration and on the scoring outbursts of a Vinicius who once again showed his most obfuscated version in front of the rival goal against Betis.