Coach: Rafa Benitez
Key signings: Danilo, Casemiro, Kiko Casilla, Mateo Kovacic
Key sales: Sami Khedira, Iker Casillas
Last season: Second
This season [predicted finish]: Second
Predicted finish is the average prediction of the Football Espana team.
Real Madrid don’t do quiet summers. The gap between the end of last season and the start of this one has seen one Coach sacked and another hired, the club’s long-serving, home-grown captain sold, his replacement as skipper flirt with Manchester United before signing a bumper new contract, the intended replacement in goal still at Old Trafford and, just days before the first round of the League, yet another midfielder signed, this one for a reported €30m.
This is the world into which Rafa Benitez stepped when he replaced Carlo Ancelotti. Ancelotti was sacked only days after the final game of 2014-15, Benitez hired in his place despite a less-than-successful time at Napoli. The Iker Casillas saga was far from settled when the former Liverpool manager took the job, the David De Gea rumpus was in its full throes and the Sergio Ramos set-to was only just beginning. Mateo Kovacic was just another name whirling around the transfer market, a rumour that seemed unlikely to come to fruition – just what would Benitez do with a sixth creative midfielder?
Benitez has to answer that question and more, and, if the example that was made of Ancelotti is any guide, deliver a trophy too – while battling last year’s treble winners Barcelona, the ever-ferocious Atletico Madrid and Sevilla and Valencia, both jostling for a top-four place. Ancelotti was dismissed almost exactly a year after winning the Champions League, the most-wanted Champions League there ever was, La Decima. The Italian realised the dreams of Florentino Perez. 12 months later Perez was explaining to the Press why he had to go.
The more things change at Madrid, the more they stay the same. It seemed unthinkable a summer could pass without a big-money signing but less than a week before Madrid meet Sporting, Kovacic’s arrival was confirmed. Danilo was bought long before the start of the season and Kiko Casilla mid-way through the summer but right-backs and goalkeepers who aren’t from United just don’t cut it when it comes to glamour buys. Skilful, ball-playing midfielders are where it’s at, despite James Rodriguez, Isco, Luka Modric, Toni Kroos and Marco Asensio all already competing for a place.
Benitez at least has weapons at his disposal – kind of. There are plenty to provide the ammunition but few to pull the trigger. Karim Benzema looks like staying at Madrid but behind him the ranks are thin. Cristiano Ronaldo and Gareth Bale could and probably will be used centrally at times, and Jese will be straining at the leash for an opportunity, but the feeling persists the likes of Jese, and Lucas Vazquez and Denis Cheryshev, repatriated from Espanyol and Villarreal respectively, will struggle for chances to impress.
Lucas Silva didn’t even get that much – he’s lost his squad number, to Kovacic, and told he can find another club, and Asensio is on his way to Espanyol. Their departures, both temporary, at least clear some space and they may each get their chance in the future, Asensio especially, but there’s still something of an imbalance in Benitez’s squad. The Santiago Bernabeu crowd didn’t give the new style of play a rousing welcome in the Trofeo Santiago Bernabeu win over Galatasaray and, in some quarters, the knives are out already.
Benitez himself admits Madrid need to improve on their summer performances. How much time he’ll get to oversee that improvement will of course be determined by results. He has Perez’s backing for now but, then, it’s not so long since the President was waxing lyrical about Ancelotti. As a number of plotlines draw to a conclusion, we may be witnessing the start of even more. Could Benitez’s time be up before it’s even begun?
