The Real
Madrid added before Valencia his third defeat of the season (the first away) in a calamitous game in defense that casts doubts on his future with a national team break through unforeseeable consequences for the whites. After the last round of international commitments, Madrid lost consecutively to Cádiz and Shakhtar at Di Stéfano. Bad omen.
The debacle at Mestalla (4-1) represents the worst defeat of the Zidane era, along with the 3-0 endorsed by PSG last season in the Champions League group stage and a 0-3 Barça league in 2017 and is In addition, the second time that the whites have received four goals since the Frenchman's arrival on the Madrid bench. Only Courtois was pardoned from the defensive nonsense perpetrated by Madrid, tortured relentlessly by the clumsiness of his teammates.
The defensive solidity that Madrid exhibited after confinement and that allowed them to win the league title is conspicuous by its absence this season. In last season's 11 league express matches, Zidane's team conceded only 6 goals, two of them against Leganés when the trophy was already in their windows. After 11 matches this season, the numbers show a bleeding in defense to say the least worrying, since he has already conceded 16 goals and has only been able to seal his goal three times: 0-0 against Real, 1-0 against Valladolid and 0-2 against Levante. In Champions the dynamics is even worse. He has received 7 goals in 3 games and averages two goals conceded per clash. Data you can't hold if you want to advance rounds.
The absence of Casemiro in Mestalla due to his positive in coronavirus left Madrid without its containment dam in the medullary, which multiplied the facilities of a Valencia that frequently counterattacked taking advantage of the imbalance of the whites, very exposed with Modric, Isco and Valverde . Madrid's problems when Casemiro is missing are not new: he only adds one victory in the last six league games that the Brazilian has missed.
But beyond the figures, the sensations that Zidane's painting offered yesterday are even worse. The setback against Valencia exposed point by point the deficiencies of Madrid in the rear and portrayed all the members of the rear: Lucas Vázquez caused the first of the three penalties with an innocent hand and entered the area during Soler's launch that Courtois stopped forcing Gil Manzano to repeat the maximum penalty. The player worked well on the right-hand side at the Camp Nou and against Inter as an emergency solution before the casualties due to injury to Carvajal, Nacho and Odriozola but at Mestalla the seams were seen and he sinned as a rookie in the position, demanded without stopping for a colossal Gayà.
Here you can see the summary of Madrid's game against Valencia
Marcelo, once again a surprise starter, arrived late in an action with Maxi causing the 3-1 penalty and Ramos committed a recklessness with his hand that caused the 4-1 at the behest of the VAR. Varane, the only defender who did not score a penalty, scored an own goal and showed that he is not going through his best moment no matter how much Ramos was at his side yesterday.
Marcelo, in the eye of the hurricane
If there was a player who came out of Mestalla especially singled out, that was undoubtedly Marcelo. The Brazilian has been losing influence in the white team by leaps and bounds due to the good work of Mendy and, despite the absence of another defensive prop Casemiro, Zidane opted to reel in against Valencia.
The French coach, unpredictable in his line-ups, opted for an offensive line-up and the shot backfired. His start to the game was good, frequently stepping on offensive positions and assisting Benzema in the 0-1, but Marcelo was diluted like the rest of his teammates. So much so that, although he was the Madrid player who recovered the most balls (9), he led the negative statistics of his team according to Opta data: he missed 12 passes and lost 23 balls.