Real Madrid's Pre-Season Begins with Changes Aplenty Under Rafa Benitez
Marca called it Rafa Benitez's "baptism without fire." At AS, it was labelled Real Madrid's "cold start." The temperature references were both figurative and literal, football's glamour club underwhelming an enthusiastic Melbourne crowd on a particularly chilly evening at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.
The 0-0 scoreline neatly reflected the quality of the contest with AS Roma in this opening match of the International Champions Cup, with penalties needed to split two sides that didn't live up to the billing the Australian media had given them—particularly the one in white.
The Melbourne crowd, the Herald Sun had declared, had come to see "the richest team ever to play" at the city's colossal venue, the local newspaper astonished by the magnitude of Real Madrid's wealth: "The 800-odd players in the AFL [Australian Football League] this year will earn a combined $181 million. A potential starting lineup for Real Madrid in Saturday night's International Champions Cup opener against AS Roma would earn that much in little more than a year."
This, evidently, was a big occasion for Melbourne. The problem, however, is that it wasn't one for Real Madrid. For the night's headline act, this was a pre-season game against a rarely seen opponent, played 17,000 kilometres from home on a freezing night, inside a venue built for a different sport and in a country still learning to embrace the world game that's not at all like the local one. Madrid's verve matched what the occasion was for them.
Still, there was another side to Los Blancos' uninspiring display: This is a team in full-scale transition. Under a new boss, a new shape is being implemented. Roles are changing. Stars are being repositioned. Habits are being broken. The XI looks different.
Saturday's match was essentially the soft launch of a system that still needs its bugs ironed out. But still, the media's Spanish contingent was left unimpressed.
"Without titles that have a calming effect," wrote AS, "without Casillas, without transfers of substance, without sofas nor lamps (as Benitez would say), and without a consensus among the fans over where they are going, the new Madrid started with a draw without salt or joy against Roma."
Was it really that bleak? That gloomy? It will depend on your viewpoint. But what Real Madrid needed following a campaign of underachievement was change. And under Benitez, change, whatever the outcome, is what they're getting.
"Built around Bale," declared Marca in the game's aftermath with the most telling headline around. The Madrid-based daily added that the Welshman's central positioning "confirmed what many have suspected for some time."
Bale's case was undoubtedly the most notable on the night. In a 4-2-3-1, the 26-year-old started in the hole behind Jese and was flanked by Cristiano Ronaldo and Martin Odegaard, given space and freedom in which to roam, charge. "Playing him in behind the striker is an option and I like it," said Benitez of Bale afterwards.
The forward's role was in great contrast to the restricted right-sided one he'd played under Carlo Ancelotti, and more reminiscent of that which he'd performed at Tottenham, the one so wonderfully described by the Guardian's Barney Ronay as "a bespoke kind of forward-stormtrooper role, a position that has no traditional label but might best be described as Sprinting Happy Run-Shoot Man or Lone Attack Stampede Humiliation."
The devastating possibilities of such a role for Bale didn't transpire against Roma, amounting to just a few sharp runs and half chances. But the intent is positive; it's a club thinking about a €100 million player as a €100 million player, finding a role for a unique talent and building the system from there, rather than the other way around.
It'll take time, but it is how to get the best from the Welshman, the way to get the Tottenham version of him—the one we stressed here at Bleacher Report that Real Madrid must find again:
"Bale is his own breed, an extraordinary athlete who also just so happens to be able to do extraordinary things with a football. Let him do them.
When Real Madrid signed Bale, he'd spent a season basically functioning as a warp-speed, one-man battering ram. It was football based on instincts, something primal and not defined systems with pigeonholed roles. There was almost a Michael Jordan mentality to it: Give him the ball and get out of the way. That's the "YouTube" Bale, the one of freedom and blissful, unrefined thrills. Benitez and Real's job is to turn him into that again.
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Bale's central positioning on Saturday—and Benitez's obvious intent to continue using him there—also says much about the way Ronaldo will be used in 2015-16. The Portuguese is something of a tricky issue for Benitez, a player who remains his club's top dog but a player who's evolving away from what he's been. Ronaldo is no longer that dazzling winger of flair, power, hubris and dynamism; now he's a forward of staggering efficiency, positional nous, crisp finishing, subtle movement and savvy, one far more lethal operating closer to goal. You can see the numbers behind his evolution here.
But, even so, Ronaldo still appears to covet his left-sided berth, the position that gives him the sort of freedom he'll be denied at centre-forward. For Benitez, the obvious way to push him toward the No. 9 role would have been to start Bale on the left. But he didn't; Bale's positioning down the middle suggests Ronaldo will continue out wide, with Karim Benzema likely to keep his role at the head of the attack even though Marca noted that Benitez delayed the "BBC relaunch."
Naturally, Benitez's use of that trio held the most intrigue against Roma, but there were other changes evident in Melbourne.
Starting Jese as a striker indicated the young Spaniard could back up Benzema in 2015-16, allowing Real Madrid to settle for what they have rather than enter the transfer market once more. The switch to the 4-2-3-1 also saw Asier Illarramendi partner Luka Modric in midfield—an occurrence that might not prove to be regular next season but one that indicates Benitez will consider a more defensive edge to his central pairing.
The presence of Raphael Varane alongside Sergio Ramos was also notable, coming a month after Marca had declared that the Frenchman was "prepped for step up" and ready to move above Pepe in the defensive pecking order. And when Modric stood over the night's first free-kick with Ronaldo positioned to receive it rather than take it, the feeling of immense change for Real Madrid under Benitez was confirmed.
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