An attacking machine with fatal errors: a fearsome side and a worrying one for Real Madrid
A clear contradiction that confuses Mourinho's calculations
Real Madrid have shown two faces at the start of the season. At the Santiago Bernabeu they look one team, on the road another. Away from home they attack with real menace, yet defensive lapses and individual errors keep creeping in to cause concern.
Spanish newspaper "AS" put it well: Real Madrid can be a hurricane or merely a heavy tropical downpour that opponents ride out.
Going forward, the team carry immense threat. The problems come at the back, and they stretch beyond the four defenders to become the responsibility of the whole group.
Think of a predator with the fangs of a sabre-toothed tiger. Then think of that same predator leaving itself exposed mid-battle, perhaps because it believes too much in its own strength.
This current Real Madrid have two faces. Their capacity to be decisive matches their reality as a team still under construction. They are a fearsome machine, but one that needs a few bolts tightened, which is why they look unfinished.
What stands out most in the opening rounds is the gap between home and away. A drop in level once you leave your fortress is normal in football, logical even.
Yet Mourinho's team present a wholly different picture on their opponents' turf. Real Madrid scored four against both Real Sociedad and Malaga, two big wins that came easily and sent their confidence soaring in a festival of goals.
Look beyond the goals and other numbers tell the story. At the Santiago Bernabeu, Real Madrid fire off shots at a rate of 10 on target while conceding just two.
The other face
Away from home the picture changed completely. The league opener at the Cornella-El Prat stadium proved a real slog, because their dominance never translated onto the pitch in the same way.
Real Madrid looked the better side against Espanyol, but they laboured to seal the win. They managed a third fewer shots, 7 between the posts and the crossbar, and scored six goals fewer.
Attacking sharpness dips on the road, and it deserted them entirely at the La Cartuja stadium, which is exceptional. Real Madrid had failed to score in only one of their previous 24 matches, and that was against Barcelona in the Clasico on 10 May.
The team also concede double the shots away from home compared with their own ground, at a rate of four per match.
Defensive lapses
The two faces run through the defending too, because that is exactly what these are: lapses and errors they could have avoided, which makes the sting doubly sharp.
Against Espanyol, the goal stemmed from a breakdown between Valverde, who carries most of the blame, and the back line as they tried to mark Calatrava.
Then came the Real Sociedad goal, born of a string of half-hearted errors from Konate and Carreras in failing to snuff out the counter. Yesterday's goal at La Cartuja followed a Valverde mistake after he lost his man on the ball that rebounded from a corner.
None of this points to a tactical flaw or a poorly built team. These are individual errors, the kind that slip by unnoticed in a big win but hurt badly when the scoreline is tight.
Such mistakes breed concern, especially with matches ahead that punish any slip. Get them wrong and the team could fall. They are bolts that need tightening, electrical flashes in the wires of a machine still under construction.
Fresh and tired
Los Blancos know the taste of defeat and decline. Mourinho joked during pre-season that the team actually have three faces: "fresh, tired, and very tired".
Over time the coach shed that last version, a natural outcome once the preparation period passed and the physical work bore fruit. Yet the "tired" traits still show, on the team and on certain names led by Bellingham. His late return to pre-season, after the World Cup with England, means his fuel runs dry from the 70th minute, and the team's tempo inevitably drops with it.
None of these details call for the alarm bells. What they reveal is a project yet to hit its peak, one that needs to keep building.
Ferocious in attack, Real Madrid manufacture chances by the dozen. But the missing defensive concentration creates noise, laying bare those two contradictory faces: four goals at the Santiago Bernabeu, only two away, then a blank last night. The fearsome machine still needs its bolts tightened. It remains unfinished.
