Real Madrid's Struggles: Lack of Effort and Identity
The knives are out for Real Madrid, and this time they are not aimed at the bench.
Seven games into the La Liga season, a 2-1 derby defeat to Atletico has lit up the phone lines and airwaves. Real go into the international break sitting fourth, already six points behind a rampant Barcelona, and the mood around the club has turned sharply.
On Cope’s late-night flagship show “El Partidazo,” the verdict was brutal and unanimous: blame the players.
“They don’t want to move”
The criticism did not dance around the issue. It went straight for the heart of the team’s identity – effort, intensity, collective work.
Spanish broadcaster Manolo Lama set the tone. For him, the problem is not who occupies the dugout.
“Not with Carlo Ancelotti, not with Xabi Alonso, not with Alvaro Arbeloa,” he said. “The players continue not to put in the effort and not to show solidarity among themselves.”
The accusation is damning for a club that built its mythology on competitive fury and big-game character. Lama pointed to passages of play in the derby where Atletico calmly circulated the ball at the back, unbothered.
“If Atletico Madrid start passing the ball around, specifically between the two centre-backs and the goalkeeper, Real Madrid would not push forward to press them,” he said.
Then he stripped it back to its simplest form.
“They would wait, and they did not even want to move forward to confront them.”
For supporters listening in, this is the kind of charge that cuts deepest. Not a lack of talent. A lack of desire.
A team of athletes, not a team of playmakers?
Journalist Paco Gonzalez took the baton and widened the criticism to the squad’s very construction. In his eyes, Real Madrid’s problem is not only attitude. It is also profile.
“This current Real Madrid does not have the players needed to play, with the exception of Guler,” he argued. “Who is able to carry out an organised collective attack at Real with this current line-up? Tchouameni, Bellingham, but the rest, all they offer are individual movements.”
The contrast he drew was stark. Physically, he sees an elite side. With the ball, something far more limited.
“Real Madrid get a 10 physically when you watch them, so physically they can beat anyone,” Gonzalez said. “But in order to play football, there is only Guler.”
That line will sting inside Valdebebas. Arda Guler, still at the start of his Real Madrid story, being framed as the lone true “footballer” in a squad stacked with internationals and Champions League winners, speaks to how disjointed the team currently looks in possession.
Structural flaws and a style problem
The criticism did not stop at Real’s own dressing room. Gonzalez also pointed to players like Konate and Dumfries as examples of a wider issue: defenders who struggle to bring the ball out from the back in systems that demand it.
“Konate and Dumfries do not have a good ability to bring the ball out from the back,” he said. “It is a huge problem relating to the style of play and the players.”
The point was clear. At the highest level, if your back line and wing-backs cannot initiate play under pressure, your entire attacking structure suffers. For Real Madrid, the phone-in consensus painted a picture of a team caught between physical dominance and technical limitation, between reputation and reality.
The table does not yet show a crisis. Fourth place in early October is recoverable, especially for a club accustomed to late surges. But six points behind a flying Barcelona, with the fanbase questioning not tactics but effort, the margin for error is already shrinking.
The international break gives everyone at Real Madrid time to breathe, reflect, and reset. When they return, one question will hang over every performance: will this group finally start running for each other again, or is this what the new Real Madrid really looks like?
