Real Madrid conclude an underwhelming UCL League Phase with an encouraging win | OneFootball

Real Madrid ended the League Phase of the newly formatted UEFA Champions League in quite a convincing fashion as they beat the French side Brest with a 3-0 scoreline last night.

With this win, the Merengues have the chance to make their way to the Round of 16 of the competition after playing a playoff match, against either Manchester City or Glasgow Celtic, as they finished 11th on the league table.

There is no doubt that this is not a position that most Real Madrid fans would have expected their team to be in when they kicked off their UCL campaign.

Having added Kylian Mbappe to a forward line that already boasted the likes of Vinicius Junior, Rodrygo Goes, Brahim Diaz, and Arda Guler, Los Blancos were expected to be the dominant side in Europe this season.

However, the first phase of the UCL was quite underwhelming and Carlo Ancelotti’s team failed to meet the expectations for the most part of this phase.

They got off to a winning start with a 3-1 win over Stuttgart, but even in this game, it was apparent that Ancelotti would have to do a lot of work on this team going forward.

However, things got even worse as the Merengues fell to a 1-0 defeat against the French side Lille in their second game, as they put on one of their worst displays of the season.

The ensuing match against Borussia Dortmund ended in a 5-2 victory, but Real Madrid scored all of their 5 goals only in the second half and went into the half-time break with a 2-goal deficit.

This comeback victory raised the hopes of the Vikings fans that their team has already left their struggles behind, but Los Blancos faced another reality check in the next UCL game against AC Milan, which they lost 3-1. At this point, there were significant concerns about whether they would actually be able to make it to the next round of the competition.

These concerns were only heightened when they faced the top-ranking team in the League Phase, Liverpool. The Merengues came out with a resounding 2-0 defeat in this game, mounting a lot of pressure on Carlo Ancelotti.

Fortunately, Real Madrid were able to get a hard-fought win over Atalanta in another difficult match and thus remained alive in the competition. The last two games, against Salzburg and Brest, were more convincing, and thus despite the fears, the Whites finished the League Phase in quite an encouraging manner.

Vinicius Junior was once again the most decisive player and the top-scorer for his team in this first phase, scoring 7 goals in total. He was followed by Rodrygo Goes and Kylian Mbappe, with 4 and 3 goals respectively. Jude Bellingham and Luka Modric both had 3 assists to their names in this phase.

In total, Sofascore statistics show that the Vikings scored 20 goals and conceded 12, thus managing a goal difference of only 8 goals in these 8 games and averaging a rather decent average of 2.5 goals each game. Only 1 of these goals came from the penalty spot, while another penalty was missed.

Thus, while the performance on the attacking front was still far from bad, Real Madrid will have to improve a lot defensively as they enter the knock-out rounds of the competition. Hopefully, they will be able to work on this aspect before facing the best teams in Europe in the coming few months, and retain the UCL title for another season.