DISMANTLING REAL MADRID
Barcelona take apart Galacticos as Zidane’s plan backfires
THERE was one word that Zinedine Zidane kept repeating in his post-match press conference on Saturday: ‘jodido’ — the polite translation is ‘screwed’.
He was talking about how his players felt about losing the last match of 2017 against Barcelona in such emphatic fashion.
He could easily have been talking about his own situation going into 2018 with just the Copa del Rey and the Champions League to play for and having seen his master plan against Barcelona's Ernesto Valverde so comprehensively taken apart.
Only a week ago that the French coach became the first Real Madrid manager to guide the team to five trophies in a calendar year but things change quickly as coach at the Bernabeu — he had taken certain gambles that simply did not pay off and when the inquest is carried out on this game he may well take much of the blame.
His opening gambit was to replace the creative Isco in his starting line-up with the more destructive Mateo Kovacic. The plan was that Kovacic would stop Sergio Busquets coming out with the ball and also look to smother Leo Messi whenever Barcelona did manage to build an attack.
The plan worked in the first half but Kovavic was nowhere to be seen when Barcelona scored their second goal created by Busquets sweeping out of defence.
As well as the Kovacic plan not working, Isco never got a kick in the game. Real Madrid's most creative player would maybe have been introduced late on but because of Dani Carvajal’s sending off Zidane choose to throw on defender Nacho to cover the loss of the full-back instead.
That is also likely to be thrown back at him. Why at 2-0 down put on a defender? Could he not have gone to a back-three?
There is no suggestion that Zidane’s job is in danger. He has just delivered the World Club Cup — a fifth trophy in 2017 but there is an uncomfortable scenario on the horizon.
What if Madrid fail to get past Paris Saint Germain in the Champions League?
That would leave Madrid just with the Spanish Cup to contest because no one expects them to make up a 14 point gap in the league even with a game in hand.
More likely than Zidane being dismissed is perhaps the arrival of one or two new players in the winter window.
Athletic Bilbao keeper Kepa is on his way but after a fine display from Keylor Navas the goalkeeper position is not a the pressing problem.
A move for a striker is likely to be what the crowd call loudest for. Karim Benzema still has just two goals all season and one of the loudest noises on a rather flat early afternoon in the Bernabeu was the sound of him being whistled as he was substituted.
Barcelona boss Ernesto Valverde said his side had not performed as they would have liked in the first half but praised them for outlasting their rivals physically.
Barca’s perfect weekend was rounded off as Valencia missed the chance to move into second place ahead of Atletico Madrid as they suffered a third defeat in four games.
Carlos Bacca scored the only goal as Villarreal won 1-0 at Mestalla and Valencia will also start the new year without top scorer Simeone Zaza, who was sent-off after seeing two yellow cards in 60 seconds just before the hour mark.
Atletico were also beaten for the first time in La Liga this season 1-0 at Espanyol on Friday. Agencies