5 flops from Real Madrid's horrible performance in loss vs Atletico Madrid
No stars. That was how poor Real Madrid were in their 2-1 loss to Atletico Madrid on Sunday afternoon. Real Madrid went two goals behind after Dean Huijsen's silly red card, and although Antonio Rudiger was able to get one back, the performance was not nearly good enough to warrant a draw, let alone a win.
Real Madrid did not deserve anything more than a loss - if anything, their performance deserved a couple more goals in the other team's favour. The red card was blatant, and even though there were two red-card-worthy challenges from Atletico Madrid, Real Madrid's performance, even with 11 men, was not up to the level, which is what they should focus on.
Here are the flops:
5 flops from Real Madrid's horrible performance in loss vs Atletico Madrid
Vinicius Junior
The only good thing about his performance was that he was hooked a few minutes into the second half - right after Dean Huijsen's red card. That's how bad he was. Another miserable performance from the Brazilian, who has one goal and three assists since securing a superstar-level contract for the next six seasons at Real Madrid.
Aurelien Tchouameni
Still makes no sense why he is starting over Bernardo Silva. Why the two starting midfielders in him and Fede Valverde are starting over Silva. Tchouameni was not giving Real Madrid enough without the ball, and even less so without it. Horrible performance. Eduardo Camavinga looked better than Tchouameni when he came on, which is a lot considering he did not look that great either. Tchouameni's return to the pitch has only put Silva on the bench, which is the last thing this Real Madrid team needed.
Kylian Mbappe
Real Madrid needed a lot more from both of their superstars against Atletico Madrid, and even though he was better than Vinicius Junior, Mbappe was still one of the most disappointing players on the pitch. A really bad performance. Maybe there were worse performers than the Frenchman on the pitch, but there were more expectations on him to produce quality for Real Madrid than on any other player on Real Madrid's side of the grass, and yet, he was not able to create many chances.
Dean Huijsen
Before the red card and penalty, Huijsen was actually having a good game. He was defending well, with a lot of courage, and was able to position himself alongside Ibrahima Konate in a solid manner. However, a mistake he has made multiple times in the past happened once again, and Real Madrid lost entirely because of it. You can talk about all the things that the referee got wrong on the occasion, but the things that Real Madrid had control over, they executed them poorly. This mistake was one of them.
Ibrahima Konate
Once Huijsen went off and things started sailing south, Konate's performance also started deteriorating. He let Jonathan David score easily. Not the worst player on the pitch, but not the best either. It was a toss-up between him and most of the remaining players on the team for the final spot.
