DBasia.news – August hasn’t over yet, but the presence of Zinedine Zidane and Cristiano Ronaldo still linger for Real Madrid supporters, and Julen Lopetegui showed his managerial talent in coaching the team. His assertiveness should be appreciated with thumbs up.
Madrid might be under the spotlight due to the lack of transfer in replacing Ronaldo and just recruited Alvaro Odriozola, Vinicius Junior, Andriy Lunin, and Thibaut Courtois, the latter has a high profile in Europe. The critic was getting worse after the 2-4 defeat from Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Cup.
Las Blancos won’t surrender easily. They revived in LaLiga by two consecutive winning against Getafe (2-0) and Girona (4-1). In these two matches, Lopetegui showed his power of Madrid players. The spotlight is for his indiscriminate act toward all players, regardless of the status as a star, senior, or young player.
Courtois recruited from Chelsea was on the bench and hasn’t sent to the pitch by Lopetegui. He still believes the number one place for the goalkeeper is for Keylor Navas. The same thing goes to Luka Modric benched during the matches.
Lopetegui gave the chance for Isco, Toni Kroos, and Casemiro in the central line in 4-2-3-1 formation. In the recent match against Girona, Raphael Varane as the key player of Zidane recent seasons sent on the bench by Lopetegui who gave the opportunity for Nacho Fernandez as Sergio Ramos option in the defensive line.
Even Marcelo, who never replaced on the pitch, withdrew at 60′ by Lopetegui in the match against Girona. Lopetegui wasn’t applying the player rotation in his policy, but purely his opinion of the individual performance of each player. If it decreased or became poor, Lopetegui would send them on the bench, regardless of the status.
“Real Madrid officially started the season by conceding a goal in the first minute and losing the UEFA Super Cup to a Marcelo mistake, one of those usual defensive misconceptions that he and some teammates have in them. That is why the coach did not hesitate to replace Marcelo against Girona when there was still half an hour left. His pulse doesn’t tremble,” Marca wrote on their article, Tuesday (28/8).
Lopetegui’s policy is relatively fair compared to Zidane who often played the similar scheme from one match to another the past two seasons. Even though they got three consecutive Champions League titles and one LaLiga, players like Alvaro Morata and James Rodriguez left because they felt unsatisfied with their playing era under Zidane.