Real Madrid Are Rolling: The Task Now Is to Prolong It Beyond This Season

The task in front of them was big and the potential consequences in waiting were even bigger. The coming 24 hours would shape careers and futures, but just looking at Zinedine Zidane, you wouldn't have known it. 

"The message is to be patient," said the Real Madrid boss, his expression barely wavering, his voice calm. "Everything happens in football."

Specifically, Zidane was referring to his side's second-leg encounter with Wolfsburg in the quarter-finals of the Champions League, where Madrid required the fabled "remontada," the comeback, in the face of a two-goal deficit that threatened to definitively derail the club's season. Concurrently, though, Zidane's message could be viewed in a broader context as well; what he was getting at were possibilities, the unforeseen, how small moments alter weeks, how weeks alter years, how everything can change. 

He wasn't the first to say it, either. 

"You never know," said Gareth Bale, "football does funny things to teams when you lose and you never know what could happen." Bale was speaking in the aftermath of Madrid's 2-1 defeat of Barcelona in the recent Clasico, his assertion that everything can shift even if the indicators suggest it won't. "All they [Barcelona] need is a few bad results, we need a few good ones and we're right back in it."

It turns out he was correct. 

Real Madrid are right back in it. 

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This has been a remarkable reversal in the capital. Little more than a month ago, Madrid looked dead, buried. In late February, they drew with Malaga and then suffered more pain in the derby against Atletico, before going on to trudge through meetings with Levante and Las Palmas. As a group, they looked directionless and dispirited; the outlook appeared bleak; Zidane was already glancing ahead to next season. 

But look at it now. 

Now, Madrid sit just one point back of Barcelona in the league with five games to play, a 12-point swing unfolding between Gerard Pique's opener in the Clasico and Barcelona's loss to Valencia just 15 days later. The momentum is Madrid's, too, as is an opportunity in Europe. Zidane's men have surged as Barcelona have faltered. 

This wasn't at all what had been foreseen, but it's happened anyway. The mood has swung, the dynamic has shifted: Real Madrid are rolling. 

The task now is to prolong it. 

For Madrid, there's a genuine sense that something can be made of this season despite the tumultuous journey to this point. In the league, admittedly, they still need a favour or two from Barcelona and Atletico, but in the Champions League a hunt for an 11th European crown remains entirely in their hands.

It's on, then, it's just there, and so is a sudden feeling of connection. 

"How could I not love you...!" read a recent cover of AS, drawing on a chant heard at the Bernabeu during the remontada against Wolfsburg. The truth is the club's fanbase has, for most of the season, had plenty of reasons not to, but now not so much. They like what they see. The atmosphere, the sensations—they're different now.

The thing is, though, Real Madrid must use this momentum. There's an opportunity here to build a platform.

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Too often Madrid have undertaken needless upheaval in their summers, a pattern that has continued to undermine them. In 2015, the club sacked Carlo Ancelotti just 12 months after lifting the European Cup; in 2014, they immediately overhauled the very squad that had only just helped the Italian do so—an example that feels extremely relevant here. 

Indeed, Madrid's current season has followed a similar trajectory on the pitch to that of 2013-14, even if institutionally the campaigns are very different. That year, Madrid started with one system and finished with another. Isco started prominently but faded. Ditto for Sami Khedira. Angel Di Maria presented a headache and then a solution. The midfield was rejigged not once, not twice, but three times. Gareth Bale had to be incorporated. 

Throughout, Madrid struggled for ultimate fluency and cohesion, but then, when it mattered, they stumbled onto something that worked: The front three clicked all of a sudden, a midfield fell into place, Luka Modric became the Luka Modric we know now, Di Maria found new life in midfield and Xabi Alonso underpinned it all.  

In the season's final third they exploded, winning the Copa del Rey and storming to the Champions League crown. It had taken time, but right there, Madrid had something that worked. A template. A method. An identity. Momentum.

And then they ripped it up and started again. And failed. 

Andres Kudacki/Associated Press

Now in 2016, it's easy to see the parallels. 

Even if you ignore the institutional turmoil, Madrid's current season has been tumultuous. The sum of the parts has always been extraordinary, but again, cohesion, fluency, an encompassing idea—until very recently, it had been absent.

Under Rafa Benitez, the entire dynamic of the team shifted, and so did the shape: Gareth Bale's position was changed. Cristiano Ronaldo's role became something different. The midfield underwent several reconfigurations. James Rodriguez and Isco were pushed to the periphery. 

For the opening months of Zidane's tenure, similar themes were evident even if not to the same extent. After starting with a 4-3-3, the Frenchman has trialled a 4-4-2 and a 4-1-4-1, James and Isco have been reintroduced and pushed aside again, Casemiro has experienced the opposite, Toni Kroos has been shifted around and the identity of the right-back has chopped and changed. 

Now, though, like they did in 2014, Madrid have stumbled into something that works. Fit, healthy and possessing clarity, the front three looks the most cohesive they've been since coming together. In midfield, a certain balance has been discovered. At the back, the first-choice quartet—with Dani Carvajal over Danilo—appears more settled than at any point this season.

It's not perfect and questions remain, but still, Madrid—almost from nowhere—have developed a certain sense of structure, of identity. What they're trying to do looks clear. There's a plan. There's an idea that is understood and embraced. They've arrived there along the most turbulent of paths, yes, but they are there. 

In the hunt for silverware in the immediate future, such a discovery is vital. Perhaps more vital, though, is prolonging it, protecting it and using it as a platform for the next and not just the now.