Bad Habits At The Bernabeu

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Who’s to blame? Who is praised for the success blamed for the failure. Who is praised for creating conditions of success is blamed for conditions of failure.

Pernicious Habits

Carlo Ancelotti has a tendency of allowing bad habits. There have been reports in the past about his training regimes, most infamously at Bayern.

We would do well to remember the narrative surrounding his 2015 departure from the Bernabeu. The were grumblings about his being a soft touch and allowing literally the best squad in the world to fail. I defended Carlo then.

Tchouameni is not a poor player. I have my reservations about him but none which amount to Aurelien as a bad player.

It is irrational to not promote Asencio who is actually a CB in lieu of Tchouameni who is playing out of position. If Tchouameni has lost his form in midfield, let him fight for his place there. If Tchouameni will be converted to a full-time CB then that should be made clear but even in that case he should fight for his place there now that Asencio is there.

More Bad Habits

The swiss-army knife who papers over the cracks of bad management. Fede Valverde’s ability to be in two places at once can make any manager look like a genius. Eventually he is asked to do too much and against well-coached sides, self-belief and effort will come up short because of lack of tactical structure and coherence.

Fede and Camavinga had to keep eyes on two to three players at a time against Barcelona. Barcelona on any given Sunday will seek to overwhelm the opposition midfield. This is no great insight. It is almost as permanent as the colour of their shirt.

The duo had to cover space in front of them and behind them as if there were no other Madrid players on the pitch.

These kinds of issues are not new under Carlo. These are bad habits; pernicious habits, covered up by the brilliance of players like Valverde who have transcendent moments and performances. Eventually that low percentage play leads to average performances getting average results and poor performances resulting in losses.

Bad Habits and Their Outcomes

Losing a final is not new. It will happen again in future and with even better performances. Every now and again a picture is worth a thousand words. Real Madrid win and then lose and then are determined to win again, that’s the nature of champions. But this picture is a picture of Real Madrid so far this season. This picture is the outcome of Bad Habits.

Bad Habits In The Future

Carlo Ancelotti has a negative view of young players. This is obvious in the way he speaks about them. People have praised Carlo for the development of Vinicius. Not Zidane who stayed behind to practice with him and helped his work ethic and protected him from the media when he was finding his feet.

There is nobody who believes that Carlo would have done anything for the 18-year old Vinicius. 18-year old Vinicius was not as good as Mbappe or Jude Bellingham. He still needed time.

We can see in real-time how Carlo treats you if you’re not like 18-year old Mbappe or Jude Bellingham. Your talent or commitment means nothing to him. He is so dismissive he’s said out loud that young players don’t deserve minutes but the reality is that young players from La Fabrica and even moreso in the Real Madrid first team deserve minutes, they have been identified as the creme of the crop in world football. They absolutely deserve minutes and it is his job as Real Madrid manager to give them minutes and help develop them into proper first team solutions.

Sick of It!

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

There are teams we laugh at for not being able to afford superstar players and they turn to academy players or cheap alternatives. When it’s our turn everything is an injustice. We refused to pay for a new CB because suddenly we control market value of players or what other clubs should charge. We dismissed out youth players as never being good enough to the point where it was taken for granted on MM that there’s absolutely nothing in La Fabrica that could help the first team. It was nonsense to me and remains so. Thankfully I no longer have to make an argument because Raul Asencio has done so expertly and he’s not even the most talented youngster in our youth ranks. If we have to play fullbacks from the youth team then we must do so. Necessity in this case becomes the mother of invention, if you will.

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