Real Madrid Must Improve Finishing for New Liga Season After Valerenga Stalemate

The biggest fear Real Madrid fans had when Rafa Benitez was announced as their new manager was that the beautiful attacking football they played under Carlo Ancelotti would disappear.

On the positive side, they would get a tighter defence, plugging the gaps that left Iker Casillas exposed so often last season. The negative could mean limited excitement and dour matches.

Madrid's pre-season campaign has shown this to be close to the truth so far, with Los Blancos surprisingly unable to score in four of their seven games.

For a team with so many star attacking talents, you would expect more as they warm up for the season ahead. Ancelotti might raise that left eyebrow of his higher than he usually does.

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Madrid failed to find the net against Roma, AC Milan, Bayern Munich and, on Sunday, Valerenga.

Not netting against the first three opponents is understandable, if not ideal. And, of course, Madrid were missing two of their finest attackers against the Norwegian side.

Gareth Bale and Jese led the line, with Cristiano Ronaldo and Karim Benzema back in the Spanish capital thanks to niggling injuries.

It must be said that in terms of chances created, Madrid were playing at a decent level in Oslo.

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Marcelo was in fine fettle, charging forward with abandon down the left. An early cross fell for James Rodriguez, but he skewed his effort wide.

The Brazilian had an effort from the edge of the box himself, which flew a mere whisker past the right-hand post.

Bale was getting involved, but his own finishing was lacking, blazing over when he should have tested the goalkeeper and then seeing an effort from a Marcelo cross well blocked.

Bale had another go from a free-kick, but Valerenga goalkeeper Sascha Burchert was alert to stop it on what proved to be a busy but successful afternoon for him.

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Benitez was happy with Madrid's efforts, though he is not usually one to criticise himself.
Instead, he pointed at the finishing of his team and highlighted the absence of the predatory Ronaldo. Per AS, he said:

"

We have to think about the players that were missing. The most important player and the one who scores the most goals in this team was not here, but the team has come forward and that’s a positive. When a team creates 20 chances I’d like to think we could have scored a goal. The fans seemed to enjoy it.

"

When Madrid kick off their Liga season against Sporting Gijon on August 23, we can expect a different looking lineup, featuring both Ronaldo and Benzema, assuming they overcome their respective fitness issues.

An extra pre-season friendly has been confirmed too. At 10:30 p.m. CET on August 18, the club will face Galatasaray in the 36th edition of the Santiago Bernabeu Trophy.

That will be an opportunity for the team to rack up a few goals at home, which surely has to be Benitez's aim in order to give his men both confidence and momentum.

The coach has already proved he can get the defence in working order, so it would be nice to see the attack functioning at full throttle too.

Of course, you could point to the 4-1 win over Manchester City as evidence of that, and it's true, Madrid were sparkling that day.

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A large part of that, though, was down to a naive and inexperienced City defence, featuring two teenagers.

There's no doubt Madrid's forward line has the talent to score plenty of goals. The question is whether Benitez can fine-tune it to match up to Spain's other famous attacking trident.