REAL-ITY BITES
United brought down to earth by ZZ’s Galacticos and Mourinho knows he has a fight to snatch Bale
IT was not quite a lesson, certainly not a rinsing, not a masterclass, but it was enough.
Enough to remind Jose Mourinho, enough to remind those Manchester United supporters idly wondering of a return to European supremacy, the task remains monumental.
It was not a gulf but it was a significant gap.
The dangers of reading too much into this type of game are obvious but one thing is clear.
Mourinho’s United might well mount a creditable Premier League challenge this season and might advance far in the Champions League but will not be a formidable force.
For large parts of this contest, European champions Real Madrid were, in all departments bar goalkeeping, comfortably superior.
That they had to hang on fairly desperately after Romelu Lukaku pulled one back following strikes from Casemiro and Isco was probably down to a lack of intensity in the wearying warmth. But their quality was a cut above which is why Mourinho spent a lot of the match with hands huffily on hips. This will have hurt.
This was once a glorified exhibition match, certainly in the psyche of Sir Alex Ferguson, who treated it with what some could have perceived to be barely-concealed contempt on the two occasions he contested it. It is not any more and definitely not for one of the game’s incurable trophy addicts. Mourinho can reel off his trophies as easily as reeling off the alphabet.
He was never going to make it 26 here but at least it will have given him some valuable information with the really serious business soon to begin.
The United boss will certainly be mulling over his best defensive combinations.
Eric Bailly, suspended here, will certainly start against West Ham on Sunday, bringing a sense of security that was
missing when an unchaperoned Gareth Bale lazily volleyed an early sitter on to the running track and when Casemiro’s header struck the crossbar so violently, it set up a United counter-attack.
In that counter-attack, we saw a snapshot of one of Paul Pogba’s very few character defaults, his occasional tendency towards selfishness perfectly exemplified by a refusal to play in Jesse Lingard when that option was so smackingly obvious.
It is fine to have an eye for the spectacular but not when the most fruitful ploy is so blatant.
Mourinho quickly needs to exorcise that slight show-pony streak from Pogba.
As a dominated United were heavily reliant on the breakaway, such poor decisions were inexcusable and, considering the defensive uncertainty, always likely to prove costly.
So it proved when Dani Carvajal’s simple clip put what looked to be a marginally offside Casemiro clear.
His first-time half-volley was far from marginal.
The goal and a drinks break – maybe theirs was Rioja – seemed to take the edge off Real but there was no escaping their technical superiority.
The passing was crisper, the movement far more intelligent, the control more assured.
All that was encapsulated by Isco’s goal early in the second half, a cool finish after a fiercely intelligent exchange with Bale, who should have put proceedings to bed soon after but crashed a close-ranger across the crossbar.
In fairness, Lukaku had just squandered an equally easy chance but he made some amends when sidefooting in a sitter after Nemanja Matic’s shot had been poorly dealt with by Keylor Navas.
Marouane Fellaini’s introduction as some sort of floating targetman changed the momentum of the game in United’s favour and they had strong sniffs of an equaliser, not least when fellow sub Marcus Rashford fluffed a one-on-one.
But that would have been papering over some very obvious cracks.
Zinedine Zidane’s team were worthy winners.
It was not a masterclass but it was a lesson even Jose will have to learn from.