Real Madrid require major surgery as doubters circle Zidane

With the media and fans alike eulogising over the performance of Mauricio Pochettino’s Tottenham side against defending Champions League holders, Real Madrid, the Spurs coach was quick to bring in some calming perspective to the table.

Victory and qualification into the knockout stages of the most prestigious club competition in the world, he said, would count for nothing if the club didn’t actually win something at the end of the day.

Some might have expected a different reaction from a man who until Wednesday had never, either as a player or a coach, beaten Real Madrid although, personally, I would have expected nothing less from this demanding coach that always expects – and invariably gets -more from his players and everyone around him.

Pochettino and all his training colleagues have always set the bar very high but the past few weeks has seen them climb to a new level, and more importantly a level at which they feel very comfortable.

The importance of Harry Kane has been well documented. Less known, but equally laudable is his approach, attitude and influence off the pitch and on the training ground and in the dressing room and personified by his desperation to play against Real Madrid so soon after injury.

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His pass to Eriksen for Spurs’ third when other strikers might have been tempted to go for goal themselves is indicative of the team ethic that prevails in the current Spurs set up.

Players like him and Hugo Lloris ensure that Pochettino also feels comfortable in this new phase of his career although he will always tell you that this is just another part of the process, a work in progress.

There is no secret ingredient that has taken Pochettino and his Spurs side to this new place other than inordinate amounts of hard work, repetition coaxing, encouragement, and all within an environment where hard work and effort are appreciated and rewarded and where everyone, as a consequence improves.

The exact opposite, in fact, to what is currently occurring with Real Madrid where all you can see is a wet blanket of complacency, a lack of passion, and an almost insolent lack of interest.

Real Madrid committed just six fouls throughout the entire game and, if I’m not mistaken, only one in the first half. Far be it from me to encourage a culture of fouling in any game but the very act of not conceding a single free kick over a 45 minute half implies a total lack of motivation and a severe attitude problem.

At the start of the season in two Super Cup competitions Real Madrid brushed away the challenges of the likes of Barcelona and Manchester United and in the process looked like the best side in Europe by a country mile.

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But when you win a lot, to keep on winning is very often the hardest thing to do and this Real Madrid is unrecognisable as the side that had two more pots in the trophy room before so much as a league ball had been kicked.

Whether or not they now believe that success and results are a right rather than something that comes about through sheer hard work, dedication and application is something only they will know but the reality is that this Real Madrid side is a shadow of the team that it threatened to be back in August.

Back then they not only had a starting line up capable of winning everything, they also had what everyone thought was a Plan B on the bench that could be called on at any time and was every bit as good, if not on occasions better, than the first choice.

Not any more. When your Plan B goes AWOL there is only one possibility, a third option, namely to dig in, fight, battle, call it what you will; to stand strong within the basis of a organised structure and the sad fact is what we saw from Real Madrid’s Wembley debut was a team without heart, courage and, most worryingly, devoid of any structure.

This could well be the inevitable consequences of having a team that for some time now has been over reliant on individuals as opposed to the team ethic. Unfortunately that means when the individuals fail to perform, the side takes on an appearance reminiscent to that of a sandcastle swept up by an incoming tide.

First Girona and now Spurs have shown us that if you establish a way of playing that is in any way versatile or different you will expose Real Madrid’s kitten like weakness.

This inability to deal with anything slightly different from the norm is almost unbelievable especially considering the kind of season this self same team enjoyed last year.

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Is Zinedine Zidane under pressure? Is the Pope Catholic? Is Brazil big, is rain wet, is Peter Crouch tall? Not half, but not just because of the results and recent run of bad form but more because of the way they have occurred.

As far back as when Zidane was coach of the Castilla the Real Madrid B side I am fairly sure Florentino Perez knew in his heart of hearts that while the Frenchman may well have been a past master when it came to the extremely important job of massaging superstar egos, he was not a coach that could change the course of games through tactics or strategies.

It’s crossroads time for the French coach and I seriously doubt whether he has the coaching nous to turn this around. Having said that of course I was not alone when stating precisely the self same thing when he first took the job and he responded to all of us in the best possible way by promptly going out and winning the Champions League less than five months later and the league and Champions League double the following season.

But that was then and this is now. Unless something radical happens this is a Real Madrid side that will not win the league this year or get anywhere close to appearing in their third Champions League final in a row.

As for Tottenham, can they actually go on and win it? Who knows, but why not?? But one thing is for sure, no one is going to look forward to drawing them out of the hat in the knockout stages. Until then, of course, Pochettino will undoubtedly, on a daily basis, remind his loyal charges that up to now they have won nothing and there is still plenty of work to do.