It’s sometimes thought that Real Madrid manager Carlo Ancelotti doesn’t really have to mess with tactics all that much. He certainly likes to give that impression at times. The thinking being that Madrid are so laden with star power that all they require is some ego-massaging, just enough fitness levels, and are sent out to the field with instructions not amounting to much more than, “go f*** s*** up.”
It’s certainly more complicated than that, and though Ancelotti doesn’t like to overcomplicate things, on Tuesday against Atlético Madrid in the Champions League Round of 16 1st leg, Madrid certainly had a plan and executed it to deadly effect.
Real Madrid pulled Atlético apart
Madrid’s strength is clearly the frontline, with Rodrygo, Vinicius Jr., and Kylian Mbappe form an unholy trinity of destruction. Their strength is in how they combine, their imagination, and how they can get out into space on the break if an opponent isn’t careful. Atlético have always been constructed to allow about as much space as a car crusher, so that wasn’t going to available to the 15-time European champions. So Madrid created space another way, by having Rodrygo and and Vini Jr. play as wide as possible at all times.
This is in the very 1st minute of the game, and look at how each of them are hugging the touchline:
With Atlético defending in a 4-4-2, this maximum width forced both their fullbacks and wide midfielders into some tough choices. Madrid can play things like basketball, where all they have to do is get their wide forwards into one-on-ones and let them cook, because Rodrygo and Vini Jr. are going to beat their men more often than they don’t. Once they break that down, it’s usually over.
The first goal came pretty quickly from that first photo. While Madrid’s defensive injury crisis has forced Federico Valverde into a right-back role, there is a benefit to having a gifted midfielder playing there. That would be having a midfielders passing range at that spot. For the first goal, Valverde gets the ball after Madrid switches play from the other side. With the quick switch, Atlético left-back Javi Galán has an acre to cover to get out to Rodrygo. Left midfielder Samuel Lino can’t get out to Valverde to close him down quickly, which gives him a good look at the space between Galán and the centerback Clément Lenglet:
You can can imagine where it goes from here (he fixes the cable?):
For Madrid’s second goal, they were able to counter how Atlético countered the isolation Madrid’s two wingers were getting by staying so wide. Both of Atlético’s wide midfielders started to get closer to Madrid’s wingers and played deeper, which only let Madrid’s fullbacks creep up. This time on Madrid’s left, Ferland Mendy is able to use the space between Atlético’s right-back and right center-back, and combines with Ibrahim Diaz to expose it.
From these heatmaps, it’s easy to see how close to the touchline Madrid kept both Vini Jr. and Rodryo to open up the space between fullbacks and centerbacks. Eventually, Atlético manager Diego Simeone switched to five at the back to close this up when he decided that a 2-1 deficit going back to their home for the second leg wasn’t the worst outcome in the world. Atlético haven’t started a match playing with five defenders for a while, but it’s something Simeone may think about next week for the 2nd leg.
Madrid are so hard to deal with when their three forwards combine. There’s only a few players in the world on that plane, and Madrid have a triple set of them. In the 1st leg on Tuesday, Madrid found gold by keeping them as separate as possible.