At the beginning of the season, there was a debate within Real Madrid about who would be the owner of the left wing, which at the start of the new season had many candidates to occupy it. The first was Vinícius Júnior, who had just finished the best season of his career, winning the Champions League and the league.
But this was also the zone of influence of a Kylian Mbappé, who arrived at the White House after more than seven years of waiting, also starting as a theoretical left winger. And as an almost tertiary player, there was also a Rodrygo who, in previous campaigns, had on many occasions shown a much more influential performance playing on the left.
Ancelotti hits the nail on the head to form the perfect attack
Such was the abundance of talent on the left wing that many thought Carlo Ancelotti would have a problem creating his attacking front line. However, almost six months after the new Whites’ trident first came together, it seems that the position the three frontmen were supposed to fight over has been orphaned.
And it seems that now everyone wants to play in the middle. Vinicius tends to drift into the number eight position with increasing regularity, Mbappé starts the diagram as a theoretical false nine, and Jude Bellingham also has an influential position around the three-quarter area, in an area of the pitch that varies between the left side and the center of the attacking zone.
Something that sometimes seems to have caused the congestion to shift from the left to the center. A perfect example of this was the first half of the game against Atlético de Madrid, when the Whites tried in vain to penetrate the center of the field to the red-and-white back line. A series of attacks in which the left wing was abandoned and the four men up front concentrated on the middle.
What we saw in the second half had little or nothing to do with the first. A second half in which Vinicius and Rodrygo occupied their respective wings and Mbappé the center. In this way, Madrid tore apart the defensive net play by play, leaving Simeone with Oblak as his only salvation against the harassment and demolition of the Merengue.
A less and less positional style of football to free up the attack
However, one of the great advantages that Ancelotti has, and with which he has managed to hit the key, is the versatility of the three forwards to occupy any of the attacking positions. A versatility that encourages a constant exchange of positions, in which sometimes it is Vini who appears on the left, only to later leave that space to Mbappé or Rodrygo to take his place.
This constant mobility, in a system that is becoming less and less mobile on the part of Real Madrid, is one of the keys with which the Whites have managed to unravel the Rojiblancos’ defensive framework. The three up front and Bellingham were swarming into the area, and the Madrid back line did not know which of the three offensive references to mark, leading to one chance after another.
For this very reason, what at first seemed like a problem to be solved may now be Real Madrid’s best weapon to open any game. Provided, of course, that Vini, Mbappé and Rodrygo are able to coordinate their attacks and changes of position with the aim of dismantling any defense, although always starting from attacks on both wings.