How Real Madrid EXPOSED This Tactical Error Against Atletico Madrid!

So last night, Real Madrid edged their way toward a 2-1 victory over city rivals Atletico Madrid, a win that I think they just about deserved. However, two teams that are very close geographically were also really close on the football pitch. Neither team really dominated in terms of possession, and neither side was too creative in front of goal to generate too much xG. The question is, why was this such a close football match? Well, because both teams were really scared of each other, so neither team pressed particularly high, giving both teams stages of control. So because this was such an even game, I do want to take the time to talk about both teams, and we're going to start off with Atletico Madrid on the ball. And like I've already said, there wasn't too much pressure on the ball. They were able to play out from the back with time to get themselves into an offensive shape. In terms of how Real Madrid were approaching things, it was very much a 4-4-2 out of possession. So Diaz would move to the left-hand side, Rodrigo to the right, and then of course Mbappe and Vinicius as the front two. We can see Real here in the 4-4-2 shape. In terms of how Atletico looked to approach this, they started to build possession with more of a back three. So Llorente, the right back, would move across, and they would move into this sort of shape with the left back moving further forward, and we can see the sort of shape that they are going to take up here. It's sort of a 3-2-4-1 shape. The important thing here though, was the amount of time Atletico Madrid could get on the ball behind the Real Madrid front two. Normally, if you are Real Madrid here, you're playing in a sort of passive 4-4-2, you would expect Vinicius and Mbappe to be quite deep as strikers to restrict the time for the Atletico midfielders, but we didn't see that. These two don't do their defensive work particularly well, so the likes of De Paul and Barrios could actually get a lot of touches and a lot of time on the ball, and in fact Barrios was actually the most progressive player on the football pitch, and that was because of the amount of time that he had in these positions. As a result of these two having so much time, Real Madrid basically went, if the front two aren't going to do anything, the rest of us need to be really compact. So the wingers, Rodrigo and Diaz, moved into really, really central positions like this, kind of tucking in right inside with their two central midfielders, trying to reduce the space in the middle of the pitch, and to be fair, initially this did work. They did congest the centre, it was difficult for Atletico to move through the lines in these positions. However, Atletico did have a solution to that, and that was actually to ask the midfielders to drift a little bit wider, and rather than going through Real Madrid, they were going to go around them, and then come back through them. De Paul in particular, on the right-hand side, rather than always operating in the middle here, he just started drifting a little bit wider because there was no pressure on the ball, so he could kind of move wherever he wanted to move. So he could move into these positions outside of the Real Madrid structure, and then because of this extra time on the ball, but also the angle he's now got, this is where we started to see the opportunities to now go into the feet of Griezmann. Now they could play in between the lines, get Griezmann on the ball, and on the turn in these positions. The problem was for Atletico, they just lacked actual attacking quality. Of course, they've got some really good players here, but they just kind of struggled to make it click, particularly when they came back inside the pitch. However, where they did have a bit more success was down the left-hand side, and this is because, again, Real Madrid are so, so narrow. You can see Rodrigo in a really central position in these areas. This means there is easy access out wide. Now, if there is easy access out wide, and the Real Madrid winger is narrow, that means Valverde at right back for Real Madrid is going to have to come out towards him. He has to apply pressure to the ball, but there's a problem here, because Valverde is essentially one versus two. He's dealing with the left back, but also the left winger, because he isn't getting too much help from Rodrigo, because Rodrigo is so narrow, and sometimes too high up the pitch. So this is essentially a two versus one down this side of the pitch. So as Valverde gets dragged out into this position, you can then make the run in behind, and this is where you can start to attack channels, get into really good positions in the final third. Now, the solution to this for Real Madrid was either just to let him go, and ask the centre-back to go into that wide position, and ask the midfielders to fill in these areas, or we could see one of the central midfielders, Chiomini or Kamavinga, actually tracking into this area, but this then left a space in this position here. So this is all the knock-on effect of the front two being so passive. It means that Atletico can move the ball forward, and we saw this for the goal. You can see it here, the four across the pitch here, really, really narrow. This isn't the goal actually, sorry. This is another example, but you can see the four narrow, and as the ball goes backwards, Rodrigo tries to gamble and go forward, but now he's just miles out of position. He is so, so central, and also doesn't put the work in to track back here. It's bad defensive play from Rodrigo, but you can see Atletico easily move the ball to the left-hand side, and suddenly this is a two versus one situation, and Valverde's got a bit of a problem, because there is so much time on the ball, the ball can be carried forward and progressed all the way into the final third. The goal though was actually where we saw this at its best. Again, you can see Rodrigo in a fairly narrow position. He's within the width of the box. He is narrower than Valverde. His right back, he is tucked in, but he doesn't actually really do too much to affect the ball here. This means that Atletico have the easy pass out wide to the left-hand side like so, and of course, Valverde has to come out towards him, but in doing this, Valverde is going to open up that big space behind him. This isn't criticism of Valverde. It's just a tactical thing that happened. That space was created in behind him in that right-back position, and of course, Atletico Madrid have the players that want to attack this space. Now, on this occasion, Camavinga actually tracks him into the back line. He goes with him. He leaves his midfield position and drops into the back five. The problem is he's opened up this space on the edge of his own penalty area. He's dropped so deep to follow the runner that he's opened up this space, and then eventually, Julian Alvarez does some really good work, comes back into that space, and then scores this goal. I mean, the goal is an absolute worldie, so it feels harsh to criticize Real Madrid too much, but this was Atletico Madrid taking advantage of certain gaps. The problem was really for the team in red that this was all they really had. There wasn't much apart from this. If we now flip this over and look at Real Madrid, we have a similar setup, but different problems are going to be present on the pitch. So once again, Real Madrid have got time on the ball because Atletico Madrid are sitting deep, they're compact in their shape, and they're in a 4-4-2 shape, just like Real Madrid were. However, Atletico apply their 4-4-2 in a very different way. For example, the strikers, Alvarez and Griezmann, do a lot of defensive work. There were moments in this game where they were literally lined up on the edge of their own penalty area. So Real Madrid had a lot of time on the ball. This was very much a question of, can you break the team down? And I mean, normally, the way that Real Madrid go about doing this is by targeting the left-hand side, and it was no different in this game. Particularly with Kylian Mbappe playing up front as a striker, we know what he likes to do. He does favour the left-hand side, but there were also plenty of moments in this game where he would drop deep, even as a central midfielder. And again, to kind of highlight how passive Atletico were, when Mbappe was dropping into these positions, the centre-backs didn't go with him. So Mbappe picked up the ball and had all the time in the world. Now, from an Atletico Madrid point of view, Mbappe is in a position where he can't do too much damage here, but it is giving the team in that ability to get on the ball and have spells of dominance like we saw in this match. And as always with Real Madrid, what they want to do when they get the ball is find the left-hand side, because nearly always, almost every match you watch, they're going to have an overload in this wide position. There's going to be Vinicius out there, Mendy, Camavinga, Diaz in this game in the place of Jude Bellingham drifting to this side of the pitch, and Mbappe as well. This is what Real Madrid want to do. They want to get all these players over in this position, create these overloads, and these moments for potential combinations. Now, interestingly enough, the time that this was actually most successful was when they had less players in this area. So rather than having four or five, it was actually two or three. That extra little bit of room actually gave them more room to attack and combine. You can see Mbappe here, more to the right-hand side on this occasion, and it gives the three on the left-hand side the space to play pass and move football. This is what Ancelotti does so well. He gives his players the freedom to combine with each other, to express themselves, to attack space, to rotate in these positions, and it works really, really effectively. Like I said, it's all about passing and moving. Mendy plays the ball and then makes the run off the ball. Next up, on the ball here, pick up the ball, pass it, and then make a run off the ball. Vinicius does something similar. Picks up the ball in the wide area, slides the ball through to Mendy, Mendy makes the run, passes the ball off to Diaz. Once again, the solo work here from Diaz is absolutely ridiculous, but it comes from the same old Real Madrid tactic of trying to overload the left-hand side, and realistically, they were often successful in doing this. However, Atletico did try their best to stop this. You can see actually, if you look at the tactical board here, Atletico Madrid were really trying to get numbers on this side of the pitch. They were aware of the Real Madrid threat. They were trying to overload these areas to stop Real Madrid being so successful. However, this did cause a problem for Atletico because all of their defenders were over here. It meant that if Real Madrid were patient, cycled the ball backwards, they could actually then work the ball out towards the right-hand side, and Rodrigo could now be one versus one. And Rodrigo is one of the most underappreciated players on the planet. He is unbelievably good at football. I don't think there is a fullback in the world, really, which wants to be 1v1 with this young man. He is simply unbelievably good at the sport. So, Atletico Madrid almost underestimated his threat a little bit. They were so focused on trying to deal with this side, that they left this side just a little bit too open. We can actually see this in its full effect here. Here, we've got Kylian Mbappe starting off as the striker and dropping a little bit deeper. As he drops deeper, you can see the centre-backs have no interest in following him. Eventually, he moves to the left-hand side, where Real Madrid now have four players. As always, there's combination work. There's some one-twos. They're linking together down this side of the pitch with their immense technical quality. But what happens is Atletico Madrid decide to get several defenders over there. Six Atletico Madrid players in this box here, including one of the strikers. This is how defensive they were at times with their approach. The problem is, because they've got so many players over this side of the pitch, if Real Madrid are patient, cycle the ball backwards and across the pitch, Rodrigo, now on the other side, has a lot of time. When he picks the ball up, this is where you want Rodrigo, if you're the attacking team, not the defending team, because he's unbelievably good in these positions. This is where he really shines, taking players on, getting into the final third, being direct, attacking players. He is simply amazing at this. We also saw, though, a similar sort of issue just so early on in the game, and it led to the first goal. You can see Atletico here really overwhelming that side of the pitch, trying to stop the Real Madrid threat. The problem was, they forgot about the threat on the other side of the pitch. So as the ball comes across here, we can see it gets moved to Valverde. The Atletico Madrid players are still over there. They're still defending that side of the pitch, but actually, the threat is over here now, and this was a real problem for them. They got it wrong very early in the match, and it cost them because of the quality of Real Madrid. So as Valverde picks the ball up, we can see the space here. This is a 2v2 on this side. Again, Rodrigo and Valverde, two of the best players in the world. You do not want to be two versus two with these two. They're too good, too quick, too powerful, too technical. They're amazing footballers. You can't leave yourselves two versus two in this position. So this was a mistake, perhaps, from Simeone or a misunderstanding from the players on the pitch. It didn't work, and early on, you saw them get really hurt. You can see the midfielder sort of comes out to the ball here to try and close Valverde down, but it's too little, too late. Valverde plays the ball in behind, and again, Rodrigo, individual quality, unbelievable brilliance with the goal, and that was sort of the story of this game. Neither side fully opening up because they were so scared of what the other team could do in transition. It meant that it was very close. It meant that both teams got a lot of time on the ball in this game, but also that both teams tactically could hurt each other, particularly in the wide zones. Although, in terms of big chances created, it was still very much lacking, but when you play a Champions League game of this stature, sometimes you need a little bit of individual brilliance, and both teams had this. Real Madrid just had a little bit more, and it got them a 2-1 win, which I think was just about deserved, but I want to hear your thoughts in the comments down below. Did Real Madrid deserve this win? Which was the best goal of the three, because in different ways, they're all absolutely amazing. They're all brilliant goals, so let me know what you think in the comments down below. Did Madrid deserve to win this? Real Madrid, that is, and how can Atletico bounce back in the second leg? Let me know in the comments. Also, subscribe to the channel whilst you're here, please. Leave a like on the video, notifications on, all of that stuff, but apart from that, we're finished for today, so thank you for watching. Hope you have enjoyed it, and as always, I'll see you in the next one.