Both El Clasico Sides Look Troubled, but Madrid Have More to Lose Than Barcelona
Real Madrid's 2-1 loss to Manchester City in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday had an end-of-era feel to it—like we were witnessing the passing of the team that has dominated European football over the past decade. It was epitomised by the sight of the team's leader, Sergio Ramos, being sent off late in the game, which rules him out for the return leg. Having conceded two away goals, it will take, in the words of Mundo Deportivo's front cover, "a miracle" for Real Madrid to proceed to the quarter-finals.
City manager Pep Guardiola outfoxed Real Madrid tactically. Kevin De Bruyne and Raheem Sterling—who drew a penalty from a clumsy challenge by Dani Carvajal—were a class apart. Although it was Real Madrid's old failing—a lack of goals—that condemned them to defeat.
The name of Real Madrid's problem is Cristiano Ronaldo. When he left to join Juventus in the summer of 2018, Real Madrid had scored 42 more goals than Barcelona in the history of La Liga. In the space of 62 weeks, and against a backdrop in which Ronaldo has scored 37 goals in 38 games for club and country this season, Barcelona—helped, of course, by Lionel Messi's prolific scoring rate, including four goals in a 5-0 win over Eibar last weekend—have inched one goal ahead of Real Madrid.
"Real Madrid are not scoring goals," says Ramon Calderon, former club president. "Cristiano was scoring 50 goals per season on average over nine years. I've always said that it was a big, big mistake to sell him. It's clear for us that to lose Cristiano has been a great loss. The only reference in attack is Karim Benzema. Gareth Bale is not scoring. He's having a lot of problems with injuries. He's not happy playing with Real Madrid, and he's been saying it publicly, which has upset the fans.
"Vinicius is a young player. He's fast, and he plays well, but he's not good at scoring. Luka Jovic has been a failure—he's not playing and he's not scoring. We need someone. I don't know, but perhaps next year we will be able to sign Kylian Mbappe—that's the dream of all Real Madrid fans."
Eden Hazard, the man who has taken over Ronaldo's iconic No. 7 jersey, will likely miss the rest of the season as a result of an ankle injury. His train has yet to leave the station. He's only scored one official goal for Real Madrid, and worryingly the 29-year-old galactico signing is being compared in the Spanish press to Kaka, which is shorthand for "expensive, injury-prone flop."
Bale, the anointed heir to Ronaldo, has failed to step up to the plate since Ronaldo's departure. His decline is marked. Bale used to average 14 league goals per season for Real Madrid. Last season, he scored eight league goals; this season he's only registered two and has failed to score in the UEFA Champions League.
"Bale has been Real Madrid's most disappointing player this season," says Juanma Trueba, a Spanish football writer. "Last season, when Cristiano left, everybody thought Bale would assume the responsibility of being the team's leader. It hasn't happened. His performances have been perplexing. He gives the sensation that he wants to leave—that he's not happy. Now, with the injury to Hazard, Bale is once again extremely important for this team. He's the only player in the team who can score goals naturally. Benzema is not a natural-born goal scorer.
"Before, people excused Bale. They said he was in the shadow of Cristiano—that his personality was a bit subdued because of Cristiano's presence—but that wasn't the case. Cristiano left and Bale remained the same—a guy who didn't assume his responsibilities. He's not capable of being a leader of the team.
"People have run out of patience with him because he's had a lot of years at the club. He arrived as a superstar, but he's a footballer of bursts, of fleeting moments of brilliance. He lacks regularity in the team and presence. He's a detached figure. He doesn't have any connection with the fans on the terraces. He still doesn't speak Spanish yet, after so many years living in Madrid, which is a symptom of his isolation. He's exasperating."
Real Madrid have come unstuck with alarming haste. It was only a few weeks ago when they were on a 21-game unbeaten run, but defeats to Man City, Levante last weekend in the league and a 4-3 exit against Real Sociedad at the Bernabeu in the Copa del Rey quarter-final have exposed fault lines in Zinedine Zidane's squad.
"Having Fede Valverde in the middle with Casemiro has been a great success for the club this season," says Calderon. "Their solidity has helped the team to concede very few goals, although in the last few games we've been weak in defence. We conceded four goals against Real Sociedad in the Copa del Rey, two goals against Celta Vigo at home.
"Zidane has decided to rotate because of his squad's different commitments, particularly in the league and the Champions League, and that has been a problem—deciding to leave Modric and Valverde on the bench sometimes, and also Marcelo is not playing well, he's suffered injuries, which has caused the team to concede so many goals."
Barcelona also have injury woes. They travel to Madrid for the Clasico at the Santiago Bernabeu on Sunday night knowing they will be missing several front-line players, including Luis Suarez, Ousmane Dembele, Jordi Alba, Sergi Roberto and possibly Gerard Pique, who picked up a knock during their midweek draw against Napoli in the UEFA Champions League.
The team's performances have been laboured throughout the season, which saw former coach Ernesto Valverde lose his job in January. Inevitably, Messi—who remarkably has five more goals and five more assists than any other player in La Liga, despite having missed a fifth of the season through injury—has repeatedly got them out of jail.
Messi can only do so much, however. Last week, in a wide-ranging interview with Mundo Deportivo, Messi conceded that Barcelona's team isn't strong enough at the moment to compete for the UEFA Champions League, five years after their last triumph in the tournament (although in good news, he mentioned his own body is in better shape than in previous years).
"Barcelona have failed to replace their veteran players," says Joan Josep Pallas, sports editor of La Vanguardia. "They haven't brought in players that make footballers like Pique, Sergio Busquets and Suarez compete for their places, so senior players are allowed to slack off in training.
"The club has bought very badly. They spent a lot of money to alleviate the shock of Neymar's departure, which was almost a trauma, but the players who came to replace him [Dembele and Philippe Coutinho] worked out badly. Take the example of Jordi Alba, the left back, who will be 31 in March and is getting a lot of injuries. This season, the club bought Junior Firpo to cover his position, but he doesn't have the required level to play at Barca.
"Dembele, out again through injury, has been very disappointing. He's a player with a lot of quality, but he's brainless. Ivan Rakitic's level has dropped an awful lot. In general, [much of the team] is underperforming. All that is salvaging the team is the excellent form of Marc-Andre ter Stegen in goal and Messi."
Pallas still has faith in summer signing Frenkie de Jong, who had another quiet game against Napoli. Games are passing De Jong by, but he was Europe's best midfielder last season. He only completed 43 passes in the match compared, for example, to 110 by Busquets. It's like he's infected by the malaise that has gripped this Barcelona team.
"Frenkie de Jong is an exceptional player," says Pallas. "He was a very good signing. PSG wanted him badly. He's young and he has something other footballers don't have, but he's contaminated by a team that has lost many things. If a team is not doing well, it's hard if you're a midfielder to stand out. De Jong is suffering more than others from Barca's rut."
The club is mired in a publicity scandal. A private social media company based in Argentina allegedly smeared the president Josep Maria Bartomeu's enemies—which bizarrely included Messi's wife, players like Pique and club icons such as Guardiola and Xavi, as well as rival political candidates like Victor Font—by slandering them on fake social media accounts.
It has been dubbed "Barcagate" by the press. Messi has described the saga as "weird." It threatens to bring down Bartomeu's presidency. Last weekend at the Camp Nou, fans all around the stadium berated him with a "panolada," a classic Spanish football protest that saw fans wave handkerchiefs and call for Bartomeu's resignation. It was the first panolada at the Camp Nou in over a decade.
"This crisis has damaged the board," says Pallas. "The fans of Barca are angry. They don't like that the club has spent so much money on something so shady. The board intends to find out what has happened by contracting PwC [management consultants] to investigate.
"This rage among Barca fans has been building up for the last year or two because of how badly the club has been signing players, and also the absence of opportunities given to players from its youth academy. It's like a glass that is reaching boiling point. If the team doesn't win a title this season, fans will demand that Bartomeu goes."
Real Madrid, whose chances of surviving in the UEFA Champions League hang by a thread, have more to lose than Barca when the two teams meet on Sunday. They already trail their great rivals by two points in the league, so a defeat—which remarkably would make it five league losses to Barcelona in a row at the Bernabeu—could end their title aspirations.
"It's always really difficult in these matches to predict a winner," says Calderon. "We have a problem scoring goals and Barcelona is shown to be weak in defence. But of course Messi is always the key. If Messi decides, 'This is my day; I'm going to show who is the best player in the world,' I think we will be in trouble. I pray that it won't be his day!"
Follow Richard on Twitter: @Richard_Fitz
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