Managing Madrid Podcast: Ancelotti’s Tactical Mistakes

AUDIO:

VIDEO:

On this episode of the Managing Madrid podcast, Siddharth Ramsundar hosts Mazin Mukhtar discuss Carlo Ancelotti’s tactical struggles in the 2024/25 season so far.

This episode is an update on an initial one earlier in the season when we first discussed the need for Ancelotti to coach more fine tuned details and patterns into this team in the absence of Toni Kroos, which obviously hasn’t happened since.

An overview of the main talking points and analysis from the episode are presented here prior to the episode below:

Contents:

• Ancelotti’s rough start
• Pressing without sufficient ball pressure
• Buildup: the first pass is too fast and plays into the opposition’s hands
• The Mbappe integration challenge
• Final third contradictions: full backs providing false width, wide attackers box crashing
• The Bayern Munich warning signs: players organized their own training sessions
• Potential solutions

Ancelotti’s Rough Start

Carlo Ancelotti finds himself at a tactical impasse. The Italian maestro’s approach, which has delivered countless trophies throughout his career, has not worked out this season as he attempts to integrate Kylian Mbappe while maintaining the team’s prior strengths.

Real Madrid’s players looked clueless when they had to come back in el clasico because they had no clear method to win the ball back, and no clear method to keep the ball for extended stretches once they won it back, and effectively gave up as they realized there was no way their tactics at that stage would get them back in the game.

Pressing Without Sufficient Ball Pressure:

The most glaring issue in Madrid’s current setup is their inconsistent pressing structure. While Ancelotti has attempted to implement a higher man-to-man press, it has paradoxically come without directly pressuring the ball all the time. This tactical shift has created several structural problems:

• The attacking stars don’t defend: With Mbappé and Vinícius Jr. instructed to stay high in order to preserve the team’s dangerous transition offense when they win the ball back, the team’s pressing becomes disconnected as they don’t always press the ball, but the line is still high.
• The rest of the team is disconnected and wastes tons of energy: This forces players like Valverde, Tchouaméni, and Bellingham into unnecessary vertical jumps, resulting in wasted energy and broken defensive lines, and tons of frustration and eventually even resentment. This same vertical jump was needed from the center backs onto Lewandowski in the clasico because there isn’t enough pressure on the opposition midfield with Vinicius and Mbappe not defending, making it hard for even this generationally athletic midfield to cover the half spaces without leaving gaps.

Buildup: The First-Pass Is Too Fast

• In possession, Madrid’s issues begin with the first pass. Making optimal decisions in build-up play and maintaining a coherent, safe in possession structure while accommodating individual brilliance is the expectation. This team often struggles to:
• Recognize and exploit opposition intentions, often playing into their press whether that means playing it long or short
• Not enough options in buildup to simplify decision making: freedom is leading to analysis-paralysis/rumination/overthinking on the pitch from the players instead of unconscious, quick movements and decisions.
• There’s no social reference point in buildup who acts as a cue for everyone else to get open and come to the ball with Kroos gone. Everyone is empowered to do as they please and ball circulation suffers. Modric has been the main reference at 39, and Arda Guler has not been platformed sufficiently as a reference point.

Mbappé Integration Challenge:

The addition of Mbappé has led to several tactical adjustments:

1. Initial weeks saw him dropping deep
2. Recently, he’s been positioned off the last line on the right
3. This has forced Vinícius to move more centrally
4. The team lacks the non-verbal cues needed for fluid attacking movements: Mbappe doesn’t have any body language understanding of his teammates. This runs in contrast to Jude Bellingham’s incredible understanding with Rodrygo and Vinicius last season. Though, to be fair, even that took time to build.

Final Third Contradictions:

Madrid’s attacking phase presents several contradictions:

• Limited aerial threat despite crossing tendencies for the last decade
• Box-packing attempts with guys who are better out wide like Vinicius, Mbappe and Rodrygo
• False sense of width from fullbacks – who with Carvajal gone offer almost no true width and press resistance in attack but still pin wide areas – while the aforementioned attacking threats occupy central areas
• Instead of taking advantage of the fact that Vinicius and Mbappe are both creators and off ball moving finishers, we’ve kinda spammed Vinicius the creator and Mbappe down the last line all season after the initial games when Mbappe tried dropping more.

Bayern Munich Warning Signs:

The current situation bears concerning similarities to Ancelotti’s Bayern Munich tenure, specifically the gradual buildup of tactical issues and insufficient attention to detail. Carlo has earned more credit at Real Madrid than he ever had at Bayern Munich, he has been central to Vinicius’ rise for example, so it’s unlikely things ever get as bad.

But it is worth noting that at Bayern Munich, Robben, Neuer, Müller and Boateng as well as Lahm and Real Madrid’s potential head coach next season Xabi Alonso complained to the Bayern board about Carlo’s training methods! They specifically felt he didn’t improve the team nor the individual players. Apparently Robben specifically said his son received better training with his youth team than Bayern did with Ancelotti. When the players organized individual training sessions on their own, Ancelotti banned them from doing so. Players then moved to a different location for those training sessions.

Potential Solutions:

The main solution we discuss on the episode is bringing Vinicius and Mbappe back deeper instead of prioritizing the rest offense, and then sacrificing the press. This would accomplish 2 things:

1. The defense would be more compact. Even if you don’t have Vinicius and Mbappe pressure the ball heavily, simply having them wall off spaces in the block and hold shape in deeper areas would mitigate the need for the wasted 20-30 yard sprints from Federico Valverde and Jude Bellingham that don’t even result in the ball being won back.
2. The offense wouldn’t be forced to attack as quickly. The first pass out of defense could be slowed down because we don’t have outlets stationed as high up the pitch with qualitative or quantitative mismatches. You could vary the pace more, using Vinicius and Mbappe’s dual off-ball and on-ball nature to break defenses even though they aren’t stationed as high up.

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Hosts this week:

Siddharth Ramsundar (@TacticalFouling)

Mazin Mukhtar (@MazinMuk)