Is Real Madrid still struggling to find rhythm after Ronaldo’s departure?
Till the summer of 2018, Real Madrid possessed some serious threat to other teams. After Zinedine Zidane took over as manager they became more inviolable and unpredictable. We would see the match being turned on its head in and week out, big scores on board. They were very well-formed as a team. Being the Champions of Europe isn’t easy but Real Madrid made a record by being victorious for 3 consecutive years. The Real Madrid midfield came to life after Zizou took over as manager, with the likes of Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, Casemiro, and Isco they were better than ever. Everything was working as planned until Ronaldo decided to leave the club. In the beginning, there were just rumors about him leaving the club, the fans weren’t ready for this, then cut to 10th of July Ronaldo was presented as a Juventus player, he was bought by the Italian giants for a whopping 100 million euros. The whole football world was shocked, fans went haywire, this turned out to be one of the biggest transfers of the season.
To be honest, the team wasn’t ready for it too. Zizou hopes that Ronaldo would stay but that didn’t happen and everyone started to feel the tension growing in the club.
As a result, Zidane resigned as a manager just five days after he won the Champions league in 2018. Real Madrid didn’t have their star player and their main man in this scenario. A challenging season was about to come and Real Madrid signed the Spanish coach Julen Lopetegui as their manager. To fill in for Cristiano, Madrid made some huge signings as well. Vinicius Junior a young Brazilian was signed as a left-winger, Keylor Navas the first choice goalkeeper for Real Madrid for three straight seasons was replaced by Thibaut Courtois the World Cup Golden Glove winner, and a lot of players like Mariano Diaz and Brahim Diaz were signed. As a manager of one of the biggest clubs in the world, you have to be promising and that has to reflect in the game. Lopetegui lost his first match 4–2 to city rivals Atletico Madrid, from there started one of the most disastrous seasons of Real Madrid.
They were struggling to keep a clean sheet. Conceded almost every game and in October was the “real” test as Barcelona would take on Madrid at the Camp Nou. This was a test of how Real Madrid is as a team because Lionel Messi was injured and of course he couldn’t play, so both the teams didn’t have their star player and this was a test for both the teams actually. The results went just as you would have imagined, Real Madrid lost 5–1 to Barcelona and just after that Lopetegui was sacked and Santiago Solari a former Real Madrid player and the Real Madrid Castilla coach was called upon as a temporary manager and he started it with a bang, winning the first 4 games. He then led Madrid to win the Club World Cup defeating Al Ain 4 -1 and made sure that Madrid doesn’t go trophyless this year. But a spell of poor performances continued as they were out of Copa Del Rey, a shocking second leg defeat against Ajax kicked them out of the Champions League, and at the end of the season, Real Madrid was 3rd on the points table. This didn’t go very well with the club and eventually, he was sacked too. This was enough to show how Madrid struggled to score or win games without CR7. After a few requests by the President of Real Madrid Florentino Perez, Zidane agreed to manage Madrid once again.
There were some major signings for the 2019/20 season like Eden Hazard and Eder Militao. This was also the time when Sergio Ramos, Karim Benzema, Thibaut Courtois, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos, and Casemiro took control of their respected areas. Zidane’s influence really paid off. But to fill in the gap for Cristiano Ronaldo was quite difficult as Hazard was injured and was out for almost the whole season and became one of the worst Real Madrid signings. Vinicius had pace, the ability to dribble but not the finishing, and also the bitter relationship between Zidane and Bale proved to be dangerous for the team and Zizou started benching him after which the whole thing of “Wales. Golf. Madrid, in that order” started for which Bale faced a hell lot of backlash and he hardly played for Madrid after that and also he was injury-prone, Zidane had trust issues with him. Real Madrid was already out of Copa Del Rey and Champions League, soon after that, the Coronavirus pandemic forced the football to be shut for 2 months and Real didn’t lose a match after that in Laliga, being successful in 9 out of 10 matches. Madrid went on to lift their 34th Laliga title, but still the left-wing was not intact.
This season too Eden Hazard has just played 5 matches and hasn’t been in form. Benzema has stepped up this season to score for Madrid and has saved the team on many occasions. But it again comes down to who will be the next superstar for Real Madrid? Who will rise up to difficult situations? Who will threaten the opponent goalkeeper?
As of now, there is no player who could replace Ronaldo. Madrid has shown that they are capable of beating big clubs, but the margin is small. They haven’t even scored more than 4 goals in a match this season. This shows that though they are winning important matches, they are also losing to smaller teams and are not in the right rhythm after Ronaldo’s departure.