Under-the-Radar Real Madrid Position Battles You Need to Monitor This Season
Real Madrid's stacked squad means Zinedine Zidane can essentially field two starting XIs made up of elite talent, and both are nicely balanced and capable of winning any given game.
From the rotation in La Liga toward the end of last season to the shifting midfield alignment, Zidane has shown a willingness to work with what he's got rather than outlay hundreds of millions in the transfer market since his appointment as manager 18 months ago.
Like any big club, there are those whose positions in the team seem set in stone—players who have achieved everything and proven their worth over many campaigns. But a few positions, roles or opportunities to impress can still be found, and it makes a handful of battles within the squad well worth watching across 2017/18.
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Here we identify four such fights for game time that fans should keep a close eye on, as they may end up dictating an awful lot about how far Los Blancos can go this year as they bid to retain both La Liga and the UEFA Champions League.
3rd-choice centre-back race
The established centre-back pairing is Raphael Varane and Sergio Ramos, but after just one league game of the season, we can already see why it's so important to have an able third.
Varane's injury problems throughout his career mean he simply can't be relied upon to play 20-30 league matches in succession; it might happen, but it probably won't—especially in the face of European midweek matches, internationals and other games to be played. On the opening day of the season, he was, in fact, rested after featuring in both legs of the Spanish Supercopa.
Ramos, meanwhile, showed his ongoing battle with his own inner demons: a self-destructive habit to get involved where he has no need to and a penchant for collecting suspensions to leave his team short.
This isn't captaincy behaviour, and it appears Ramos will never learn. Real Madrid fans will angrily say—and rightly so—that his second yellow card against Deportivo La Coruna was farcical. It seemed a perfectly normal aerial challenge that absolutely did not warrant a booking, but the truth remains he should have been sent off earlier for a hand to the face of Depor defender Fabian Schar.
Already, a suspension looms.
Whereas central defence for most teams is an area that is rotated the least, for Real Madrid, depth is an absolute necessity.
Jesus Vallejo is back, and Nacho—a starter against Depor—is the versatile cover for both the middle and sides of defence, but there's a chance that one of those is going to be able to play around 20 matches at centre-back this term.
Nacho was excellent last year at Real, while Vallejo shone on loan in Germany. Whoever shows most consistency and ability to lead from the back will earn significant spells in the side during another trophy push this term.
Casemiro's double
Ahead of the centre-backs, Casemiro reigns supreme.
Whether in a three- or four-man midfield, the Brazilian is the anchor, cover and protector of Keylor Navas' half of the pitch, using his athleticism, aggression and excellent reading of the game.
He also has a habit of surging forward, spraying passes into the final third and popping up to score goals.
Last season he missed around a dozen games with a fractured fibula, and Zidane rotated his midfield to find a replacement. Mateo Kovacic performed the role most admirably, showing aggression and willingness to accelerate between the lines at pace to push the team forward, but there's another challenger this season in the returned-from-loan Marcos Llorente.
A positive season on loan at Alaves has pushed Llorente's claims for involvement, and he featured as a substitute late on for Casemiro in the win over Depor—a first chance to show in competitive action how he can fit into this side.
Being 3-0 up is one thing, but when Casemiro is unavailable, who will start? Kovacic has essentially become the fourth-choice central player for three roles, thanks to his consistency and teamwork, but Llorente is the specialist for the defensive-midfield role.
There's plenty of game time for both in general rotation and in-game substitutions, but the battle to be the first one Zidane turns to is more important, especially if Casemiro misses—as was the case last season—games against the likes of Atletico Madrid or a big European opponent, like Borussia Dortmund in 2016/17.
Spanish star vs. Spanish starlet
Zidane has switched from 4-3-3 being the set-in-stone system of the team to a 4-4-2 diamond since, or because of, Isco's emergence last season.
The attacking-midfield schemer has been nothing short of sensational for months, propelling the team toward La Liga glory in particular last term and continuing in the same vein at the start of 2017/18.
He plays at the tip of the diamond, but that's a much too fixed term for his actual on-pitch role: He roves, he drifts, he darts and rotates, taking up positions in spaces and always seeking to take on players, commit defenders and open passing lanes for the forwards.
Right now, he's arguably the most important single component of Madrid's XI, which is quite something to say considering how close he has been to an exit over the last two years and how frequently he was on the bench.
But he has a challenger.
Marco Asensio is the emerging world-class talent in European football, better than any of Ousmane Dembele, Kylian Mbappe or Dele Alli.
If he was at any other club, he'd be the first name on the teamsheet—he's that good.
Issue No. 1: They ideally fill the same role, the focal creative point behind the forward, exploiting the spaces between the lines and free to both drop and take possession or race ahead to create shooting chances for themselves and others.
Issue No. 2: Both know their stock has soared, and neither will countenance not being seen as a regular for long, perhaps more so Isco given he is older and has shot to such prominence, especially among the fanbase.
It's possible to fit them into the same team, of course, both wide of a centre-forward or with one acting in the Luka Modric/Toni Kroos central midfield areas, but by and large, they're both attempting to win the same spot in Zidane's team.
This could be one of the most intriguing and important battles of Real Madrid's season; keep them both in-form and happy, and Zidane is a big step toward replicating last season's success.
BBC or BC/BC?
A final battle is one that barely anybody would have expected to be on the cards even six months ago, but more and more it's coming to the point where Zidane is going to have to decide: Does the BBC attack remain in place or will the diamond be the go-to system, meaning one of them has to be left aside in some games?
Isco or one of the front three?
Cristiano Ronaldo, once fully fit and free of suspension, is a certainty for the teamsheet. Forget him being in a battle of any kind, other than the race for top scorer.
But Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale might well be fighting for the right to be Cristiano's regular forward partner in the two-man attack.
It's a strange concept, but Cristiano's five-match ban picked up in the Supercopa has actually helped Zidane out for now, delaying the moment when he has to choose between systems and key starters—just as Bale's injury helped toward the end of last season.
Over the course of last year, each of Ronaldo, Bale and Benzema missed games; the longer that goes on, the less chance Zidane has of upsetting one (or more) of them by not selecting them when all are available and showing good form.
What's certain, though, is that neither Benzema nor Bale has been as good as Isco (or Asensio, for that matter) in the last few months of 2016/17 or in the opening three competitive games in 2017/18, and one of them might have to make way sooner or later—if only for one-off games initially, until every key attacking starter is finally fit and available, forcing Zidane into declaring his ultimate preferences.
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